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More "Swear" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... we have had a fine morning with you, Mr. Hennessey, and we certainly have learned a lot," Bob said, putting out his hand. "I can't swear, though, that we could make white sugar ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... B., of my own free will and accord, in the presence of the Supreme Architect of the Universe, and these witnesses, do hereby and hereon most solemnly and sincerely promise and swear, that I will always hail, forever conceal, and never reveal, any of the secret arts, parts, or points of the mysteries appertaining to this Order of Knight of the Red Cross, unless it be to a true and lawful companion Sir Knight of the Order, or within the body of a just and lawful ...
— The Mysteries of Free Masonry - Containing All the Degrees of the Order Conferred in a Master's Lodge • William Morgan
... after a short prorogation, the king caused the two oaths to be read to them, that which the bishops took to the pope, and that to the king, on their installation; and as a contradiction might be suspected between them, while the prelates seemed to swear allegiance to two sovereigns;[*] the parliament showed their intention of abolishing the oath to the pope, when their proceedings were suddenly stopped by the breaking out of the plague at Westminster, which occasioned ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... a long talk with Correy to-day. It seems that he goes through both galleries every morning before the museum opens. Though he will not swear to it, he is of the opinion that the quiver holding the Apache arrows had its full complement when he passed it that morning. He has a way of running things over with his eye which has never ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... got him now, and he don't seem to care to keep under cover, either." G. B. Stiles seemed to address himself. "Too smart to show a sign. See here, Nelson, are you ready to swear that he's the man? Are you ready to swear ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... of life I can myself swear to. I have heard from others that he visibly strove to speak, that his teeth showed in his beard, and that his brow was contorted as with an agony of pain and effort. And this may have been; I know not, I was otherwise engaged. For at that first disclosure ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... noble dame—the like not won, once lost— How many days remain?" "Ten days, my prince, And twelvescore leagues between my heart and me: Alas! how to be passed?" Then Saladin— "Lo! I am loath to lose thee—wilt thou swear To come again if all go well with thee, Or come ill speeding?" "Yea, I swear, my king, Out of true love," quoth Torel, "heartfully." Then Saladin, "Take here my signet-seal; My admiral will loose his swiftest sail Upon its sight; and cleave the seas, and go And clip ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... Stauffacher, as I have said, Swear not to Austria, if you can help it. Hold by the Empire stoutly as of yore, And God preserve you in ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... of censures of the Act.— All who would entertain such hostile thought Would swear that black is white, that night is day. No honest man will join a reckless crew Who'd overthrow their country for their ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... now fell much faster from his eyes. "Where then are my ships?" says he. "At the Anamis," replied Nearchus; "all safe on shore, and preparing for the completion of their voyage." "By the Lybian Ammon and Jupiter of Greece, I swear to you," rejoined the king, "I am more happy at receiving this intelligence, than in being conqueror of all Asia; for I should have considered the loss of my fleet and the failure of this expedition, as a counterbalance to all the glory I have acquired." Such was the reception of ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... swear to you I am in earnest. By Cupid! I am ravished with your charms." And he would have seized her hand, but Patience hastily withdrew it; and, provoked at his impertinence, dealt him a sound box on the ear. As she did this, she thought ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... that you can't do as you please. The minute that commander accepts you, he will swear you and all of ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Honour's bitter, Confound me, where I love I cannot say it, But I must swear't: yet such is my ill fortune, Nor vows, nor protestations win belief, I think, and (I can find no other reason) Because I ...
— The False One • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... and he but one, I swear by kirke and bower and hall, He would overcome them every one If once his beames they ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... I told you last year, girls," said Grace in a tone of admonition. "Be careful what you do and say whenever she is near. She despises the Phi Sigma Tau and would revenge herself upon us at the slightest opportunity. She comes of a race who swear vendettas." ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... stories of high, romantical things, of adventures in aid of beautiful women, and of life freely given for noble purposes, until he was wrought up into an ecstasy of selflessness and longing ... and then Uncle William would come into the kitchen from the shop, stumbling, perhaps, in the dark, and swear because ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... thin neck, was reared and turned towards us: Frazao killed it with a charge of shot, shattering it completely, and destroying, to my regret, its value as a specimen. In conversing on the subject of Jararacas as we walked onwards, every one of the party was ready to swear that this snake attacks man without provocation, leaping towards him from a considerable distance when he approaches. I met, in the course of my daily rambles in the woods, many Jararacas, and once or twice narrowly very escaped ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... be organized and led by United States officers, and the members of their cabinet visited me and gave assurance that all would swear allegiance to and cheerfully follow our flag. They are brave, submissive, and cheaply ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... that other voice which you heard here on the night of your father's death. If in his tones you recognize that voice, step from behind those curtains and face him. If not—and you must be absolutely sure that you do recognize the voice, that you could swear to it under oath in a court of justice, realizing that it will probably mean swearing away a man's life—if you are not ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... began to swear. He took me for a maniac,—a wild, crazy man, and told me the best thing I could do would be to go below and turn in, and he would take me back to my friends, ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... as was his father and his grandfather before him—or whether, as indeed I think possible, he was murdered by the very man who swore so many Catholic lives away, by way of giving colour to his own designs—for if a man will swear away twenty lives, what should hinder him from taking one? One thing only I know, that no Catholic, whether old or young, Jesuit or not, saint or sinner, had any act or part in it; and on that I would ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... was Nathan Greene. I reckon he went by that name, I can't swear to it. I wasn't with him when he died. I was up in Mississippi on the Mississippi River and didn't get the news in time to get there till after he was dead. He was an old soldier. When the Yankees got down in Mississippi, they grabbed up every nigger that was able to fight. If I'd get ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... Etruria, where the Sullan confiscation had been most severe. Lepidus came forward as an avenger of the old Romans whose fortunes had been ruined. The Senate, fearing convulsions, made Lepidus and Catulus, the consuls, swear not to take up arms against each other; but at the expiration of the consulship of Lepidus, went, as was usual, to the province assigned to him. This was Gaul, and here the war first broke out. An attempt on Rome was frustrated by Catulus, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... this illustration for instance, where George Heriot the goldsmith (Jingling Geordie, as the king familiarly calls him) has just been speaking of Lord Huntinglen, as "a man of the old rough world that will drink and swear:"— ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... managed to have the post given to General Rukavina, a Croat from the Military Frontier. An eye-witness has left us an account of Rukavina's reception at Trogir. The general mounted a chair, and asked the people in the Slav language whether they would swear the oath of fidelity to His Majesty the Emperor and King, Francis II., and his descendants and legal successors. "Otchemo!" ["That is what we want!"] was the unanimous reply. After the swearing of the oath, the general suddenly began a vigorous ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... didn' mane it. It just took me, ye see, lyin' up yondher and huggin' me thoughts in this—wilderness. I swear to ye, George: and ye'll just wet your throat to show there's no bad blood, and that ye belave me." He took up a pannikin from the floor beside the bunk, pulled a hot iron from the fire, and stirred the frozen drink. The invalid turned ...
— Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... forecastle of a whaleship, in the gambling-house, in the tippling-shop, who, if you should ask them when they began their sinful course, might answer, "In my spare moments." "In my spare moments I gambled for marbles." "In my spare moments I began to swear and drink." "It was in my spare moments that I began to steal chestnuts from the old woman's stand." "It was in my spare moments that I ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... in his eye, Which chilled the soul—one knew not why— But when returning vigour came, And kindled the dark glare to flame, So fierce it flashed, one well might swear, A ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... talking about, Auntie Mairam?' answered Hemorrhoid Jack. 'Do you not believe me? I tell you, you can get double for the goods, and if you cannot use everything yourself, give it to your neighbors. You will do good business. On my word of honor, I swear to you, you will make double on it. Would I lie for the sake of such a trifle? Whom do you think you have here? But that is a small matter: I have still something better to propose. You must take a shipment of tea from me. In the ...
— Armenian Literature • Anonymous
... "I swear I wasn't," Hamar replied; "besides could any one produce a thing like THAT? The cat didn't think it was a fake—it knew what it was right enough. Besides, why are ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... time, somewhere or other. As a rule, too, the victim is a long way a better man than the original sinner who brought the ruin on him. Week days, we go to see him and, so far as our priestly vocabularies will allow, we help him to swear at the fate that has bowled him over. Nevertheless, on Sunday morning, we haul out our sanctity and our surplices, put them both on, and hold forth about Fatherly correction and a lot of other things that, in our heart of hearts, we ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... be expected from any man in my position, I gave one look of farewell to the damp and desolate walls about me, then with a breath of relief jumped from the kitchen window again into the light and air of day. As I did so I could swear I heard a door within that old house swing on its hinges and softly close. With a thrill I recognized the fact that it came from ...
— A Strange Disappearance • Anna Katharine Green
... was almost irresistible. A dozen times one's hands felt for one's pipe, but not a match was struck in all that army of thousands of men. Sometimes one feels that one is moving in a circle. One could swear to lights on the horizon, gesticulating figures ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... chorus of approval, and one of the men stepping forward said, "Beric is young, but he is a great chief. We will follow him wherever he will take us, and will swear to be faithful and obedient to him." Every man raised his right arm towards the sky, and with a loud shout swore to be faithful ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... necessary," said Dryfoos. "I succeeded in breaking up the union. I entered into an agreement with other parties not to employ any man who would not swear that he was non-union. If they had attempted violence, of course they could have been shot. But there was no fear of that. Those fellows can always be depended upon to cut one another's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... walk slowly—no, no, shorter steps! And put the basket on your arm." He stepped back to admire the result of his scheming. "Mr. Salomon," he said, seriously, "if I did not know that my good wife was waiting for me outside I would swear she stood before me. Come, take my arm,—remember, walk slowly—" and the two passed out ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... them now, in the clear light of restored reason; and you swear future lealty to us and to Holy Church," the aged ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... brother in looks, as I remember the boy. It is true that Francois made a great error when he sent word to his brothers suggesting that if either Gregson or Thorne was put out of the way you would probably be sent into the North. I swear by the Virgin that Meleese knew nothing of this, M'seur. She knew nothing of the schemes by which her brothers drove Gregson and Thorne back into the South. They did not wish to kill them, and yet it was necessary to do something that you might replace one of them, M'seur. They did ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... Don't look like that, Mary! I can give 'em the slip. It won't do to have them nab me here. Just think of the newspapers! Wake up! Don't you see? And listen: I'll do what I said I would—to- night. I swear it. You can trust me, Mary. Now, quick, show me the way out—and don't let me bump into Christine. I—I couldn't stand that. I don't want to lose ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... joined himself to the Meletians, who, urged on by the Arians, were moving heaven and earth to find a fresh charge against Athanasius. On hearing his story, they compelled him by threats and by violence to swear that Macarius had burst in upon him while he was giving Holy Communion in the church, had overturned the altar, broken the chalice, trampled the sacred Host underfoot and burned the holy books. They reported that all this had been done by order ...
— Saint Athanasius - The Father of Orthodoxy • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... own fault, and hereby I announce to the world that I swear to reform, and, with our soldiers and people, to carry out the constitution faithfully, modifying legislation, developing the interests of the people, and abolishing their hardships—all in accordance with the wishes and interests of the people. Old ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... praetorians more than Goths," said Jucundus; "no, give me the old weapons, the old maxims of Rome, and I defy the scythe of Saturn. Do the soldiers march under the old ensign? do they swear by the old gods? do they interchange the good old signals and watchwords? do they worship the fortune of Rome; then I say we are safe. But do we take to new ways? do we trifle with religion? do we make light of Jupiter, Mars, Romulus, the ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... they had the money, that they owed it, and that their holdings were not "set" at an extravagant price. All this availed them nothing. They were compelled to kneel down in the midst of the muddy road, in the dead of the night, and to solemnly swear never to behave so wickedly again, after which six guns were fired in a volley over their heads, and they were allowed ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... capacity. His poor, hard-working wife had at last taken the pledge not to support him any longer in idleness, so it was up to Dennie to do something desperate. The most desperate thing he could think of was to swear off. So before the priest he took a solemn vow not to touch a drop of ...
— Continuous Vaudeville • Will M. Cressy
... racked his brain in vain to find it. There was, to be sure, the row upon the pier, but that had been only a trifle, and the world would never believe that for anything like that a man would swear away the ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... involuntary or inevitable change—but to that which flows from our own sweet will, however sudden and strong, it instantly moulds itself in a novel delight, with all its familiar and domestic habits. Why, we have not been in 99 Moray Place for a week—nay, not for two days and nights—till you might swear we had been all our life a Cit, we look so like a Native. The rustic air of the Lodge has entirely left us, and all our movements are metropolitan. You see before you a Gentleman of the Old School, who knows that the eyes of the town are upon him when he seeks the open air, and who preserves, ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... this man Kerr over south of here, and I want you to go with me. Kerr's a bad egg, in a nest of bad eggs. There's likely to be too much trouble for one man to handle alone. You do solemnly swear to support the ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... at forty you are nominated for Congress from this district, do you think I'd ask you then to be my wife? Not if I had failed as much as you had succeeded! I would not, because I could not love you as I love you now. Don't cry! But I swear I will not marry ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... nous, you know, Standish, when girls are well off and help to keep up the whole sport of the season, it is no harm to swear they are lovely, when you're sure ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... boy—my boy? And unless you let me know I'll swear you are no sailor, Blue jacket or no, Brass buttons or no, sailor, Anchor and crown, or no! Sure his ship was the 'Jolly Briton—'" "Speak low, woman, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... broker. His being on the floor means mischief. He never goes into a big whirl personally unless they are out for blood. Bob has exhausted his buying power, and though I tell you frankly that I never speculate, don't believe in speculation and am in this deal only for Bob—and for you—I swear I don't intend to let them wipe the floor with him without at least making them swallow some of the dust they kick up. Please don't object to my helping out, Miss Sands. Ordinarily I would defer to your wishes, but I love Bob Brownley only second to my wife, and I have money ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson
... the horror I was placed in, either to denounce my daughter as illegitimate or let a murderer escape the penalty of his crime. At last I agreed to keep silent, and handed him a cheque for five thousand pounds, receiving in return the marriage certificate. I then made Moreland swear to leave the colony, which he readily agreed to do, saying Melbourne was dangerous. When he left I reflected upon the awfulness of my position, and I had almost determined to commit suicide, but, thank God, I was saved from that ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume
... you couldn't do it; nor could I advise you to try—that is, unless there were plenty more who could swear positively that she was out of her mind. Would the servants swear that? Could you yourself, now, positively swear that she was out of ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... "No, he must never know it. And I swear it and you must promise me it as well, promise it sacredly now, here at his bedside whilst he's sleeping peacefully—and if I should die, not then either, Paul"—her voice grew louder and louder in her excitement, and its hard tone became almost a scream—"we'll never tell ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... his talwar, which passed within half an inch of the terror-stricken victim's throat.) "I might put you out of caste by slaying one of your cows and forcing you to eat its flesh. You deserve all this and more—but we will be merciful. Swear by your goddesses Kali and Durga that you will never in future demand more than four annas in the rupee yearly for loans of money or rice. Swear that you will never again bribe the amla or peons of the Courts; swear that you will never again falsify the accounts ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... her to La Chance. I knew from my own ears that she hated and distrusted the man for whom she had once mistaken me, that it was he from whom she had tried to protect my gold; and I wondered with a horror that made me too sick to swear, if it were Hutton himself, and not Dunn nor Collins, who had cached that wolf dope in my wagon! If it were, he had not cared about wolves killing the girl who drove with me, so long as he got my gold. But there I saw I was making a fool of ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... history, we swear by the glorious memory of our ancestors, before the eyes of the sorrow-stricken nation, over the graves of those who have fallen for the cause of liberty, to-day ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... your hands! You severally and solemnly swear that this is all right, true, and legal, according to the provisions of the Constitution of the United States, and the laws and regulations of the State of——. So help you God, gentlemen, and me, Abijah Witherpee, Justice ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... realized how near we had been to coming to close quarters with our quarry, he went aside, and for the first time since I had made his acquaintance, I heard him swear. It was a successful effort. He returned to ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... is the minstrel's Fatherland? 'Tis where the spirit warmest glows, Where laurels bloom for noblest brows, Where warlike hearts the truest vows Swear, lit by friendship's holy brand; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... I could not do better, I would fasten them upon some sweet myrtle, or seek some melancholy cypress to connect myself to;—I would court their shade, and greet them kindly for their protection.—I would cut my name upon them, and swear they were the loveliest trees throughout the desert: if their leaves wither'd, I would teach myself to mourn; and, when they rejoiced, I would ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... deceitful. This degree of depravity is due to many vices, none of which is rejected, vices which owe their power to intrigue and falsehood. [Footnote: I know that women who have openly decided on a certain course of conduct profess that their lack of concealment is a virtue in itself, and swear that, with one exception, they are possessed of all the virtues; but I am sure they never persuaded any but fools to believe them. When the natural curb is removed from their sex, what is there left to restrain them? What honour will they prize when they have ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... be emptied and got in readiness for our reception. All the people lamented our misfortune as if the loss had been their own. So kindly, tractable, and free from covetousness are these good Indians, that I swear to your highnesses there are no better people, nor is there a better country in the world. They love their neighbours as themselves, and their conversation is the sweetest that can be conceived, always pleasant and always smiling. It is true that both men and women go ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... of earth he made, An image of the teacher wise, So deft he laid, the light and shade, On figure, forehead, face and eyes, That any one who chanced to view That image tall might soothly swear, If he great Dronacharjya knew, The teacher in his flesh ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... not to say that thy love shall not go, 25 But spare me those ages of horror and woe, For I swear to thee here that I'll perish ere day, If you go unattended by ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... heroes and the arts, where the lamps are lit by a magician called Leerie-leerie-licht-the-lamps (but he is also friendly, and you can fling stones at him), and the merest children are allowed to set the spinning-wheels a-whirling, and dagont is the swear, and the stairs are so fine that the houses wear them outside for show, and you drop a pail at the end of a rope down a hole, and sometimes it comes up full of water, and sometimes full of fairies—of these and other wonders, if you would know, ask not a dull historian, nor even go to Thrums, but ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... combined both the power of a High Parliament and that of a Court of Justice, and before the introduction of Christianity into the Island, its members were called upon to swear upon a sacred ring, brought for the purpose from the temple of the High Priest, to administer both 'with justice ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... one's brain, and Fyne's deeply modulated remonstrances abashed the vivacious animal no more than the deep, patient murmur of the sea abashes a nigger minstrel on a popular beach. Fyne was beginning to swear at him in low, sepulchral tones when I appeared. The dog became at once wildly demonstrative, half strangling himself in his collar, his eyes and tongue hanging out in the excess of his incomprehensible affection for me. This was before he caught sight of the cake in my hand. A series ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... his attire that care, neatness, and propriety which announce the respect of self as well as of others. While the dregs of the nation elevate the flatterers and corrupters of the people to station—while cut-throats swear, drink, and clothe themselves in rags, in order to fraternize with the populace, Buzot possesses the morality of Socrates, and maintains the decorum of Scipio. So they pull down his house, and banish him as they did Aristides. I am astonished that they have not issued ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... get control of myself," he said. "I have done some horrible things which can never be forgiven, but I swear to you that I have not done them intentionally. And I am not mad as you think. I am in the power of that book. I am the puppet of a horror that has ...
— The Homicidal Diary • Earl Peirce
... Catholic can swear, break the Sabbath, dishonor his parents, lie, steal, commit adultery, get drunk and commit any other crime that he chooses, provided that he returns to the confessional box and pays for having his ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... he did not swear. He picked himself up quickly, lit the lamp on the table by the window, and brought it over to the bookcase. Where Shakespeare's Comedies had stood was now a gaping void with a small key stuck in ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... divine assistance of our Lord we require you to expedite these proceedings for the welfare of your conscience. Swear, with your hands upon the Gospels, that you will answer true to the questions which shall be asked you!" and he brought down his fat hand with a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not trust your life to me?" asked Norbert reproachfully. "I swear that I will devote everything to you, life, thought, and will. On my knees I entreat you to ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... more just could he do? But never you mind: he's all right! Don't you trouble your head about him. You should see him when he gets home! He'll have his hot supper and his hot tumbler, don't you fear! Swear he will too, and fluently, if it's not ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... 1070 the men of Le Mans were driven to rebellion by the lawlessness of the local baronage, and by the oppressions of the governor whom an absentee count had put over them. They formed a commune, and compelled the more timid of their enemies to swear that they would recognise it. Others they caught and hanged or blinded; and they made systematic war against the castles of the neighbourhood, which they took one by one and burned to the ground—and this, says the outraged chronicler, in Lent and even on Good Friday! The citizens themselves ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... face; but there were not any explanations. It was remarked that Mr. Osborne was particularly quiet and gentle all day, to the surprise of those who had augured ill from his darkling demeanour. He called no man names that day, and was not heard to swear once. He left business early; and before going away, summoned his chief clerk once more, and having given him general instructions, asked him, after some seeming hesitation and reluctance to speak, if he knew whether Captain Dobbin ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... past me. I swear that he did not see me, that I had vanished utterly from his vision. I waited. He was leaning forward, pressing both his thick white hands on the table. His gaze must have pierced the ice beyond the walls, and the worlds beyond ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... could have just as easily written "flaming"; but I, too, must copy Berlioz!] He pins haughty, poetic, high-sounding labels to his works, and, like Charles Lamb, we sit open-mouthed at concerts trying to fill in his big sonorous frame with a picture. Your picture is not mine, and I'll swear that the young man who sits next to me with a silly chin, goggle-eyes and cocoanut-shaped head sees as in a fluttering mirror the idealized image of a strong-chinned, ox-eyed, classic-browed youth, a mixture of Napoleon ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... of such an honour, sire!" said she. "And here I swear that if heaven double my life, every hour shall be spent in the one endeavour to ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... my mind to nothing, but that somehow or other I should say it I would trust,—I do trust to your frankness, kindness, and sympathy, to a feeling corresponding to my own. Do you understand that feeling? Do you know that I love you? I do, I do, I do! You must know it. If you don't, I solemnly swear it. I solemnly ask you, Elizabeth, to take me ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... every day in currying them as he would a horse. They do him credit, for they are as sleek and fat as poodles. Though he avows that he is fond of pork, I suspect that he will never bring himself to order one of them to be slaughtered. To his credit I must say that he does not swear at the men; he is not, however, liked by them. When a lieutenant he got the name of 'Jib-and-Foresail Jack,' and it sticks to him still. When he had the watch at night he would be always bothering them to alter sails, and it was, they say, 'Up jib,' and 'Down jib,' and 'Up foresail' and 'Down foresail' ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... swept us all with the lightning of her eyes, coldly, distastefully, and swam up the stairs, an avenging goddess, deaf to Roger's matter-of-fact apology, blind to Miss Jencks's deprecating blushes. As for me, so under the spell of that voice have I always been, that I swear I thought her hardly used—the ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... teach thee to live and die; When distant Tweed is heard to rave, And the howlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave, Then go—but go alone the while— Then view St. David's[2] ruined pile; And, home returning, soothly swear, Was never scene so sad and fair. * * * * * By a steel-clench'd postern door, They enter'd now the chancel tall; The darken'd roof rose high aloof On pillars, lofty, light, and small; The key-stone, that lock'd each ribbed aisle, Was a fleur-de-lys or a quatre-feuille; The corbells[3] ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... seems it now that Dinah's shame can gird Simeon or Levi to avenge her fate. If then Jerusalem doth not repair To Nazareth or Athens, where did reign Wisdom of God or man in days of yore, None shall arise her honours to restore: For Herods are all strangers; when they swear To save the Saviour's seed, ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... others, and I had a good loaded gun with me. We hid ourselves behind some bushes, and watched and watched. Nothing appeared, until the girls, who had agreed to come at their usual hour for going to the wood, passed by; then, just at that moment, I swear I saw it. I felt all,—I can't tell how,—a sort of hot cold, and as if my legs were water. I don't know how I managed to raise my gun,—I did it quite dreaming like; it went off with the biggest noise ever a gun made, and the bullet must have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... said she, as she stooped to pick up the sovereign. 'You ain't a-goin' to catch me the likes o' that. The Beauty not my darter! All the court knows she was my own on'y darter. I'll swear afore all the beaks in London as I'm the mother of my own on'y darter Winifred, allus' wur 'er mother, and allus wull be; an' if she went a-beggin' it worn't my fort. She liked beggin', poor ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... "Monsieur, I swear to you that it is so. Yet what can I do? I cannot go to him, with decency. The Queen is there continually, I hear. The Duke is taken up with a thousand affairs and does not think of it. Go to the Duke, I entreat you, Monsieur l'Ambassadeur; go to the Duke and tell him what I say. Mr. ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... also true that I used to swear. When one lives all the time with rough men in the woods or on the rivers one gets the habit. Once I swore a good deal, and the cure, Mr. Tremblay, took me to task because I said before him that I wasn't afraid of the ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... stock-in-trade—beat, plant, pony, and all—concluding that "a tinker is his own master, a scholar is not." Poor Slingsby had been driven off the road by the great Flaming Tinman, "Black Jack," whose clan name was Anselo Herne, who, thrusting a Bible into Slingsby's mouth, forced him to swear his Bible oath that he would surrender his beat. Here was a truly picturesque situation after Borrow's own taste, and, no doubt with a joyful heart, he paid Slingsby five pounds ten shillings for his tinker's outfit, bought a wagoner's frock from the landlady, and felt ready enough to ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... entirely to their religious offices. In a letter which he wrote he spoke of one youthful divine as "a conceited ass who had preached for forty minutes." He not only disliked, but openly ridiculed all signs of a special pietistic bearing. It was said of him that he had been heard to swear. There can be no doubt that he made himself wilfully distasteful to many of his stricter brethren. Then it came to pass that there was a correspondence between him and the bishop as to that outspoken ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... Lover had sent her as a Settlement of Fifty Pounds a Year: Among other things, there was also the best Lace I had in my Shop to make him a Present for Cravats. I was very glad of this last Circumstance, because I could very conscientiously swear against him that he had enticed my Servant away, and was her Accomplice in robbing me: I procured a Warrant against him accordingly. Every thing was now prepared, and the tender Hour of Love approaching, I, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... poor!" he declared excitedly. "You been deviling the life out of me long enough! If the vestry had 'a' listened at me and had you up before now, that window wouldn't be smashed. I told the bishop something was going to happen, and he says, 'The next time there's trouble, you find the leaders and swear out a warrant. Don't wait ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... I swear there was a flicker of a smile in his wife's eye. As for him, he was aghast—but whether at the awful possibility of a reformed humanity that would not enable him to get anybody to toss bricks for him, or at my impudence, ...
— The Road • Jack London
... public and free permission to take this oath to any man who so desires, and at no time will we prohibit any man from taking it. Indeed, we will compel any of our subjects who are unwilling to take it to swear it at our command. * If-one of the twenty-five barons dies or leaves the country, or is prevented in any other way from discharging his duties, the rest of them shall choose another baron in his place, at their discretion, who shall be duly sworn ...
— The Magna Carta
... said the spirits of the Seven Sisters. "Swear to set us free and we shall tell you the ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... which look like these true works, but at bottom are all without faith and without faithfulness; in short, there is nothing good back of them. Thus also Isaiah xlviii. rebukes the people of Israel: "Hear ye this, ye which are called by the name of Israel, which swear by the Name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel neither in truth, nor in righteousness" [Is. 48:1]; that is, they did it not in the true faith and confidence, which is the real truth and righteousness, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... my love a ring and made him swear Never to part with it; and here he stands; I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth That the world masters. First Folio, "Comedies", p. 183, ...
— Shakespeare and Precious Stones • George Frederick Kunz
... they'd got tired of that gang down there," Johnny observed. "They were ruling the roost when we left. Do you know, I saw one of those fellows this afternoon—perhaps you remember him—a man with a queer sort of blue scar over one cheekbone. I swear I saw him in San Francisco. There's our chance to ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... the stranger's word 'nd nipped him while we could, For if we didn't take him we knew John Arkins would— And Cooper, too, wuz mousin' round for enterprise 'nd brains, Whenever them commodities blew in across the plains. At any rate, we nailed him—which made ol' Cooper swear And Arkins tear out handfuls uv his copious curly hair— But we set back and cackled, 'nd had a power uv fun With our man who'd worked with Dana ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field
... preparation—because you arouse the sense of duty, you teach the sacredness of duty, while we give it particular direction. It's you who will make them Citizens, my dear fellow—for what you mean by a true Christian is what I mean by a true citizen—our part is to swear them in. Or, as you might say, you prepare, and we confirm. Those that won't come up to your standard as Christians, won't be any ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... his parents in little things. But every day he grew worse, more disobedient and wilful, and troublesome. He would run away from school, and thus grew up in ignorance. He associated with bad boys, and learned to swear and to lie, and to steal. He became so bad that his parents could do nothing with him. Every body who knew him, said, "That boy is preparing for the gallows." He was the pest of the neighborhood. At last he ran away from home, without ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... greatly struck, by this numerical inaccuracy, he tried to turn their thoughts in another direction by asking the superior if it were true that she knew no Latin. On her replying that she did not know a single word, he held the pyx before her and ordered her to swear by the holy sacrament. She resisted at first, saying loud enough for those ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - URBAIN GRANDIER—1634 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... maddening thing is," cried Algitha, "that there is nobody to swear at. Swearing at systems and ideas, as Hadria says, is a ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the gospel in its purity to the poor, and for refusing conformity to national creeds and ceremonies. This was as absurd as it would be, to imprison such of the inhabitants of a country who refused to swear that all mankind were of one standard in height; sending those who had consciences to prison, until they pretended that they had grown taller or shorter, and were willing to take the oath. Mental decision must be formed on evidence. God can enlighten the mind to see that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... uncles, aunts, cousins, and children of those who killed the Saints and drove them from Missouri, and afterwards murdered our Prophets in Carthage jail. And yet after all this, I am told there are some of the brethren who are willing to swear against those who were engaged in that affair. I hope there is no truth in this report. I hope there is no such person here, under the sound of my voice. But if there is, I will tell him my opinion of him, and the fact so far as his fate is concerned. Unless he repent at ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... the lids half-lowered over full dark eyes. He did not look especially handsome in that attitude. Some men swear he looks like a Roman, and others liken him to a gargoyle, all of them choosing to ignore the smile that can transform his ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swear thou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh should ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... to pole a canoe upstream as do these people. Tawabinisay uses two short poles, one in either hand, kneels amidships, and snakes that little old canoe of his upstream so fast that you would swear the rapids an easy matter—until you tried them yourself. We were once trailed up a river by an old Woods Indian and his interesting family. The outfit consisted of canoe Number One—item, one old Injin, one boy of eight years, one dog; canoe Number Two—item, ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the rope's-ending he gave me made me recollect for the future. The men cried shame when they saw him beating me, and were not a little astonished when he told them that it was their fault, and that of course if they swore the little chap would swear also. After this, I really believe that several of them, rough as they were, restrained themselves when I was within hearing, though the greater number went ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... Skull-Splitter than Hakon, was the first to accept the challenge; but after a terrible combat was forced to bite the dust. His conqueror was, however, filled with such a glowing admiration of his valor (as combatants in the Sagas frequently are), that he proposed that they should swear eternal friendship and foster-brotherhood, and seal their compact, according to Norse custom, by the ceremony called "Mingling of Blood." It is needless to say that this seemed to all the boys a most delightful proposition; ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... Ploughlands, we pursued two fellows a great way through the mosses, and in end seized them. They had no arms about them, and denied they had any. But being asked if they would take the abjuration, the eldest of the two, called John Brown, refused it; nor would he swear not to rise in arms against the King, but said he knew no king. Upon which, and there being found bullets and match in his house, and treasonable papers, I caused shoot him dead; which he suffered very unconcernedly. The other, a young fellow and his nephew, called John Brownen, ...
— Claverhouse • Mowbray Morris
... Populus," the peasant cried, clasping his hands and falling on his knees. "Faith of God! I can swear that I have none of that. I never saw one, I assure you, Monsieur. Search my person and see if you find one of those things. No, Monsieur Populus, I am only a poor little bit of a cottager, I have never broken the laws in my life. I assure you I have no such thing on me. ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... their duties, they put on the brakes too soon, so that sometimes we can scarcely drag the train into the station; when they grow older at it they are not so anxious, and don't put them on soon enough. It's no use to say, when an accident happens, that they did not put on the brakes in time; they swear they did, and you can't prove ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... not within the leaf of pity writ, But set them down horrible traitors. Spare not the babe, Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust their mercy; Think it a bastard, whom the oracle Hath doubtfully pronounc'd thy throat shall cut, And mince it sans remorse. Swear against objects; Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes, Whose proof nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes, Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding, Shall pierce a jot. There's gold to pay thy soldiers: Make large confusion; and, thy ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... thinks Madame France of the attitude struck By this confident slip of good stock histrionic? Though dames swear their dear Petit Duc is a duck, The smile of old stagers is somewhat ironic. But "Bravas!" resound. A lad's "resolute will," The "wisdom of twenty years," stir admiration, The political Cafe Chantant pluck will thrill In a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... through the forest, he seemed again to be back on Cape Cod picking his way over their own lost road through the wood, and he heard "the beat of a horse's feet and the swish of a skirt in the dew." And then a carbine would rattle, or a horse would stumble and a trooper swear, and he was again in the sweating jungle, where men, intent upon his life, ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... de Fougereuse, elder son of the marquis of the same name, swear that the child, Jacques Fougeres, which is supposed to be my own and bears the name of Fougeres, which I at present answer to, is not my son, but the son of my sister-in-law Therese Lemaire, and my brother, ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume II (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... and not to leave the other undone," answered Biorn. "I hold my ancestors too dear to forget their knightly customs. Those who think otherwise may act according to their wisdom, but that shall not hinder me. I swear by the golden boar's head—" And he stretched out his hand, to lay it solemnly ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... clear that he did not credit Vignau's tale with the simple credulity of a man who has never been to sea. He caused Vignau to swear to its truth at La Rochelle before two notaries. He stipulated that Vignau should go with him over the whole route. Finally, as they were on the point of sailing together for Canada in the spring of 1613, he ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... nothing but thy chief reproach Serve for a motto on thy coach? But let me now the words translate: Natale solum:—my estate: My dear estate, how well I love it! My tenants, if you doubt, will prove it. They swear I am so kind and good, I hug them till I squeeze their blood. Libertas bears a large import: First, how to swagger in a court; And, secondly, to show my fury Against an uncomplying Jury; And, thirdly, 'tis a new invention To favor Wood, and keep my pension: And fourthly, 'tis to play ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... He waits for your answer. Swear to me that you will help His people. Give up father and mother and love, and go down as Christ did. Help me to give liberty and truth and Jesus' love to these wretches on the brink of hell. Live with them, raise them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... will heave-to at once I solemnly swear that no harm will come to either of you. I will pass over and forgive your mad attempt to run away with the ship; but if you compel us to pull alongside and recapture her, look out! Your punishment shall be such that I will make you positively pray to be put out of your misery. Do ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... grind our axes to cut it down; an open prairie we plant with trees. When we find ourselves in an unclean, malarious bog, instead of taking the short cut out, shaking the mud from our feet and keeping clear of it forever after, we plunge in deeper still and swear by all the bones of our ancestors that we will not only walk through it dry-shod, but will build our homes in the midst of it and keep them clean and sweet and dry. The good mother beckons to us with her sunshine ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... them," answered Bausi, "and I swear by my mother on behalf of all the people, that they shall be ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... the fulfilment of justice to litigants, and for the welfare and increase of the royal exchequer, and for the good of the natives; and that you will do all other things which ought to be done in so distinguished an office, and as your Lordship is bound to do." "I do so swear." "If your Lordship shall do thus, may God our Lord aid you; but if otherwise, may He require account from ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... but she was too quick for me and the chase ended in the lower hall in a group of people—her parents, my father, visitors and servants—and I saw her disappear with a backward glance, in which, I could swear, I saw two ...
— The Certainty of a Future Life in Mars • L. P. Gratacap
... lives of twelve men? Yes, I am strongly inclined to believe that this remarkable little document is genuine, and that there is something very radically wrong aboard that barque. What is it, I wonder? That Turnbull has somehow got scent of the treasure, and is after it, I am almost prepared to swear; his obvious vexation and disappointment at finding me here as 'the man in possession,' and his equally obvious efforts to shake me off to-day that he might have an opportunity to go away by himself in search of the cave, prove that; but there is something more than ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... yourself drift till you are well astern of the ship, the sentry on the quarterdeck will not see you. Here is a letter, put it in your cap. If you are fired at, and a boat is lowered to catch you, throw the paper away at once. Will you swear ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... citizens, soldiers; swear upon your honour to devote yourselves to the service of the Empire—to the preservation of the integrity of the French territory—to the defence of the Emperor, of the laws of the Republic, and of the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... you would never marry," he cried, angrily; "you have pledged your word that I should be your sole heir, and I swear that you shall not give me the go-by in ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... the last man in the disordered mass. His forgotten back was toward the enemy. He had been shot in the arm. It hung straight and rigid. Occasionally he would cease to remember it, and be about to emphasize an oath with a sweeping gesture. The multiplied pain caused him to swear with incredible power. ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... his savage allies to enter the town, and he immediately required the French inhabitants to swear allegiance to Great Britain, which they did with apparent heartiness, all save M. Roussillon, who was kept in close confinement and bound like a felon, chafing lugubriously and wearing the air of a martyr. His prison was a little log pen ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... Clarendon, "I may be unhappy in this world, and in the world to come, if I fail in the least degree of what I have resolved, which is of making my Lady Castlemaine of my wife's bed-chamber. I am resolved to go through with this matter, let what will come of it: which again I solemnly swear before Almighty God; therefore if you desire to have the continuance of my friendship, meddle no more in this business, except it be to bear down all false and scandalous reports, and to facilitate what, I am sure, my ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... countries—though, thank God, not in this—from bad laws and bad government. How many thousands and hundreds of thousands are ruined, as it seems to us, thereby! The child born in a London alley, reared up among London thieves, taught to swear, lie, steal, never entering a school or church, never hearing the name of God save in oaths—There is the lost piece of money. It is a valuable thing; the King's likeness is stamped on it: but it is useless, because it is lost, lying in the ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... said, as if to them. "I swear this weather would ruin a Tapley temper! For two weeks rain and sleet and snow and steam heat to come home to. Hello, General! How are the legs tonight, old man?" Stooping, he patted softly the big, beautiful collie which was ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... if Mr. Weiss has administered poison 'unlawfully and maliciously' he has committed a felony, and is liable under the Consolidation Acts of 1861 to ten years' penal servitude. But I do not see how you could swear an information. You don't know that he administered the poison—if poison has really been administered—and you cannot give any reliable name or any address whatever. Then there is the question of sleeping sickness. You reject it for medical purposes, ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... Launcelot, ye shall understand that Sir Tristram is a man that I am loath to offend, for he hath done for me more than ever I did for him as yet. But then Sir Launcelot made bring forth a book: and then Sir Launcelot said: Here we are ten knights that will swear upon a book never to rest one night where we rest another this twelvemonth until that we find Sir Tristram. And as for me, said Sir Launcelot, I promise you upon this book that an I may meet with him, either with fairness or foulness I shall bring him to this court, or else I ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... heed to the witnesses who came forward to swear to the unruliness of the Strathlachlan men, and the jury talked heedlessly with one another in a fashion scandalous to see. The man who had been stabbed—it was but a jag at the shoulder, where the dirk had gone through from front ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... appointed time, Mr. Butler waited upon the Judge, where he found Friend Hopper in attendance. The sight of him renewed his wrath. He cursed those who interfered with his property; and taking up the Bible, said he was willing to swear upon that book that he would not take fifteen hundred dollars for Ben. Friend Hopper charged him with injustice in wishing to deprive the man of his legal right to freedom. Mr. Butler maintained that he was as ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Horton, don't be hard on her! She may have been misled by this man; but at heart she is a good woman—I could swear it." ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... dawning gleam'd a kindlier hope On Enoch thinking 'after I am gone, Then may she learn I loved her to the last.' He call'd aloud for Miriam Lane and said 'Woman, I have a secret—only swear, Before I tell you—swear upon the book Not to reveal it, till you see me dead.' 'Dead' clamor'd the good woman 'hear him talk! I warrant, man, that we shall bring you round.' 'Swear' add Enoch sternly 'on the book.' And on the book, ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson
... no! Not this way. It was a mistake. I swear to you I am not to be blamed. Please let me help you. I don't know what you've heard—I don't know what has been said ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... Jack. He was a tall, strong man, a good hunter, fisher and climber, a sailor whenever he could get the chance to go off on a cruise; but he would not work steadily. He did not drink, or swear, or abuse his wife; but he did not support her, and if people called him Shiftless Jack, he ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... at her birth, I can't swear, but I believe her to be that same, as sure as eggs is ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... there and cuss, and see." She then set herself to the task of amusing "the child," as she and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but it was a soothing and original theory of the pair thus to account for the fact that she didn't swear ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... compelled to swear to the accuracy of his statement, and if it is found that he has knowingly sworn to a false statement, he may be brought to task ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... command, over land and by water. By water! I ask you! When there was Albert and Jeno who could not bear even the sight of water; they would not have gone in a boat on the Maros if you had offered them a gold piece each! How could they swear that they would follow some fool of a ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... think. Do not hope therefore to soften me by flattery. You have daughters, you say; well, I am willing to pardon you if one of your daughters will come, of her own choice, to die in your place. Do not argue with me—go! And swear that if your daughters refuse to die in your place you will come back again ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... of the murdered king, sick at heart at his mother's hasty re-marriage, and troubled by his love for Ophelia, returns to Denmark. The ghost of his father reveals the manner of the murder to him, and makes him swear to be revenged. The revelation so affects him that the murderers begin to fear him. He cannot bring himself to kill Claudius. In a play he shows them that he ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... onto his arm, and she looked down, while her cheeks were pale, but she continued: "I do not want to be deceived in you, and I shall not go there with you, unless you promise, unless you swear ... not to do ... not to do anything ... that is at all ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... perpetrated at Eu as elsewhere, not only during that period but under the Directory. An accomplished resident of Eu showed me a decree of the Directory, issued in 1798, and ordering the people to meet on January 21: 'the anniversary of the just punishment of the last French King, and swear hatred to the Monarchy!' 'What has come of all that fury and folly?' he said. 'For years since then the people of Eu have not only "sworn," but shown, genuine affection and respect to two French Kings, Louis XVIII. and Louis ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... knew of one thing at which she professes to be shocked. It is that her son Tom and his wife Topsy are teaching the baby to swear. "Oh! it's too dreadful awful," she exclaimed, "I don't know the meaning of the words, but I tell him he's a drunken sot." I believe the old woman ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... "Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole manhood's life, the madness of a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... something. She very highly esteemed refinement in a man. She had never met a refined woman, and was convinced that few such existed. Of course he was rich. She could be quite sure, from his way of handling money, that he was accustomed to handling money. She would swear he was a bachelor merely on the evidence of his eyes.... Yes, the affair had lovely possibilities. Afraid to speak to her, and then ran round Paris after her for five nights! Had he, then, had the lightning-stroke ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... be done among honest men"? For who can be called honest who does nothing except on his own behalf? What principle will you lay down "in dividing a common property," when nothing can be "common" among men who measure all things by their own pleasure?[701] How, again, can you ever think it right to swear by Iupiter lapis, when you know that Iupiter cannot be angry with anyone?[702] What is to become of the people of Ulubrae,[703] if you have decided that it is not right to take part in civic business? Wherefore, if you are really and truly a pervert from our faith, I am much annoyed; but if you ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... the youth he would assume, this actor so easily and constantly falls into beautiful attitudes and movements, that he seems to go about, as we heard a humorist say, "making statues all over the stage." No picture can equal the scene where Horatio and Marcellus swear by his sword, he holding the crossed hilt upright between the two, his head thrown back and lit with high resolve. In the fencing-bout with Laertes he is the apotheosis of grace; and since, though ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... sexual allurements. The cultivation of the beard belongs peculiarly to barbarous races. Among these races it is frequently regarded as the most sacred and beautiful part of the person, as an object to swear by, an object to which the slightest insult must be treated as deadly. Holding such a position, it must doubtless act as a sexual allurement. "Allah has specially created an angel in Heaven," it is said in the Arabian Nights, "who has no other occupation than to sing the praises ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... over her. In the morning she was dead. I think the hunger, the mental suffering, and the icy chill of the preceding night, caused her death. I have often been accused of taking her life. Before my God, I swear this is untrue! Do you think a man would be such a miscreant, such a damnable fiend, such a caricature on humanity, as to kill this lone woman? There were plenty of corpses lying around. He would only add one more corpse to ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... Will not you, like Minerva, who sprung from the brain of Jupiter, release me from thy winding chains or cure me—" "Say no more, Elfonzo," answered Ambulinia, with a serious look, raising her hand as if she intended to swear eternal hatred against the whole world; "another lady in my place would have perhaps answered your question in bitter coldness. I know not the little arts of my sex. I care but little for the vanity of those who would chide me, and am unwilling as well as ashamed to be guilty of anything that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... she stole The fire that through those silken lashes In darkest glances seems to roll, From eyes that cannot hide their flashes: And as along her bosom steal In lengthened flow her raven tresses, You'd swear each clustering lock could feel, And curled to ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... find that you can't do as you please. The minute that commander accepts you, he will swear you and all of ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... at night through the ranks: he was delighted to hear Kutusoff swear that he was at length going to fight; he triumphed on seeing all the Russian generals preparing for a terrible conflict; Beningsen alone had still his doubts on the subject. The Englishman, nevertheless, considering that the position no longer ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... predecessors in iniquity, and clothed this name with undying notoriety—was to come. When in the plenitude of his power, he commenced a terrible trade, till then unknown—namely, a traffic in human blood. This he carried on by procuring witnesses to swear away the lives of those persons who had incurred his displeasure, or whom it might be necessary ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... easy task to swear the Plaintiff's representative. First, she takes the book and kisses it before the formula prescribed has been repeated. Then she waits till the sentence is finished and lifts the book with the left hand instead of the right. The Registrar's clerk has to go across to the ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... solely to the existence of possibilities, in the strict sense of the term, as things that may, but need not, be. Both sides admit that a volition, for instance, has occurred. The indeterminists say another volition might have occurred in its place; the determinists swear that nothing could possibly {152} have occurred in its place. Now, can science be called in to tell us which of these two point-blank contradicters of each other is right? Science professes to draw no conclusions but such ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... buried me and dug me up. You've made me be Pharaoh with the ten plagues of Egypt, or a Christian martyr thrown to the wild beasts, just as it pleased your fancy. I've even played dolls with you week at a time, but I swear I draw the line at this. I'll do anything in reason to help entertain your chum,—ride or dance or skate or get up private theatricals,—but I'll not make a ninny of myself trying to be flowery and get ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... was not complete; When Venus thought on a deceit. Drawn by her doves, away she flies, And finds out Pallas in the skies. Dear Pallas, I have been this morn To see a lovely infant born: A boy in yonder isle below, So like my own without his bow, By beauty could your heart be won, You'd swear it is Apollo's son; But it shall ne'er be said, a child So hopeful, has by me been spoil'd: I have enough besides to spare, And give him wholly to your care. Wisdom's above suspecting wiles; The Queen of Learning gravely smiles, Down from Olympus comes with joy, Mistakes Vanessa for a boy; Then ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... execute the trust, and in fact denies that he was ever charged with it, the alleged beneficiary, having previously sworn to his own good faith, may put the heir upon his oath: whereupon the heir may be compelled to swear that no trust was ever charged upon him, or, in default, to transfer the inheritance or the specific thing, as the case may be, in order that the last wishes of the testator, the fulfilment of which he has left to the honour of his heir, may not be defeated. We have also prescribed the same procedure ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... skilful in speech. In one of the Gathas he expresses the desire of bringing knowledge to the pure, in the power of Ormazd, so as to be to them strong joy (Spiegel, Gatha Ustvaiti, XLII. 8), or, as Haug translates the same passage (Die Gathas des Zarathustra, II. 8): "I will swear hostility to the liars, but be a strong help to the truthful." He prays for truth, declares himself the most faithful servant in the world of Ormazd the Wise One, and therefore begs to know the best thing to do. As the Jewish prophets tried to escape their mission, ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... to me? I haven't been a saint, but I have never done anything I am ashamed of. Why do you shrink from life with me? Come, cast your doubts to the winds, and give me your sweet self. There is no one to love you as I do, and I swear your life shall be a ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... Toys to this, for they may be provided for in the litteral terms of an Oath, but no Provision can be made against this; for these Men after they have taken the Oath, make no Scruple to declare, they only Swear to be quiet, as long as they can make no Disturbance; that they are left liberty still to espouse the Interest and Cause of their former Prince, they nicely distinguish between Obedience and Submission, and tell you a Slave taken into Captivity, tho' ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... "Do you solemnly swear," said Goldenfein, who, besides being an attorney-at-law was also a notary public, "that the affidavit you will hereafter sign will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help ...
— Elkan Lubliner, American • Montague Glass
... to give up charge of that 1600 head of cattle he was bringing. He came to say good-bye to us, as he is off to Western Australia next week to see if he can mend his fortunes there. I was afraid he was going to be like young Charters, and swear he would never come back unless he made a pile, but he says he will be back next Christmas three years for certain, if he is alive and kicking, as ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... house of Hanover, And Protestant succession, To these I do allegiance swear While they can keep possession: For by my faith and loyalty I never more will falter, And George my lawful king shall be Until the time shall alter. And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 482, March 26, 1831 • Various
... the strange steps of my obsession? There were times of our being together when I would have been ready to swear that, literally, in my presence, but with my direct sense of it closed, they had visitors who were known and were welcome. Then it was that, had I not been deterred by the very chance that such an ...
— The Turn of the Screw • Henry James
... with Chase I shall be completely vindicated. Another thing, the suit against me will soon come up, and my counsel says that I am sure to win it. I shall be the only witness on the part of the defendant and shall have to swear that I never took any of the money. This will be the truth, as a cent of money never came wrongfully into my possession. It is a good thing they did not know I had an interest in the livery stable, or they ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... sturdy criminal False witnesses should bring— His witnesses were not allowed To swear to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... should be used with judicious caution and not allowed to run away with us. As applied by Lewis to Roman history it would have swept away in one great cataclysm not only kings and decemvirs, but Brennus and his Gauls to boot, and left us with nothing to swear by until the invasion of Pyrrhus.[242] Subsequent research has shown that this was going altogether too far. The mere fact of distance in time between a document and the events which it records is only negative testimony ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... you this but I myself. Listen." He read aloud: "With all his physical bravery and personal courage, John Broderick was intensely afraid of death. It was on his mind constantly." "Who told you that?" he demanded somewhat roughly. "I swear I've never mentioned ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... you bear is mine, and by a right as good as is your own. From his loins, who lies a corpse before us, I sprang. No brand of shame is on my birth. I am your father's son—his first-born—your elder brother. Hear me!" cried he, rushing to the bier. "By this body, I swear that I have avouched the truth—and though to me the dead Sir Piers Rookwood hath never been what a father should be to a son—though I have never known his smile, felt his caresses, or received his blessing, yet now be ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... as his successor his nephew Rada, then a lad not yet in holy orders, and made his chiefs swear to support him. ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... supposed residence of the Deity, as if calling on him to witness the oath. When he requires his servant to take an oath unto him he says, "Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh: and I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and earth;" and Jacob requires the same ceremony from Joseph when the latter promises to carry his father's bones up ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... him on this occasion;(708) and for that purpose employed all the soothing arts so common to children of his age, and which have so much power over a tender father. Hamilcar could not refuse him; and after having made him swear upon the altars, that he would declare himself an enemy to the Romans as soon as age would allow him to do it, he took ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... military affairs, the central authority exercises a very large measure of control over the federated States. All German troops swear the oath of allegiance to the Emperor. He appoints all commanders of fortresses; the power of building fortresses within the Empire is also vested in him; he determines the strength of the contingents of the federated States, and in the last case may appoint their commanding officers; he ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... utterances which, in their time, passed, in party heat, as idle words. Men will receive a new impulse of patriotism for his sake, and will guard with zeal the whole country which he loved so well. I swear you, on the altar of his memory, to be more faithful to the country for which he has perished. They will, as they follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery against which he warred, and which, in vanquishing him, has ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... He says, then'; and Craig, turning over the leaves of his Testament, read solemnly the words, 'Swear not at all.' ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... conveys a curious idea of the suspicion and insecurity of the times: "Look to your pockets. A printed paper says you will have fine papers put into them, and then witnesses to swear." ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... of the Sicilians, clothes them with an equal reality. There is scarcely a loch in that country, in which the remains of cities have not been at various times discovered; and many men have been met with who would solemnly swear they saw, and who no doubt did see, representations of them in certain states of the atmosphere. The most celebrated is that which occurs on the lake of Killarney. This romantic sheet of water is bounded on one side ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... our journey, and yet it was not entirely barren. On the first night nothing occurred. On the second, there were tremendous noises, sounds like someone beating a table with a stick. We had, of course, taken every precaution, and we could not explain the noises; but at the same time we could not swear that some ingenious practical joke had not been played upon us. There the matter ended for the time. Some years afterwards, however, I met a member of the family who occupied the house, and he told me that after our visit the bones of a child, evidently long buried, had been dug up in the garden. ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... a crash in front of The Nugget, and the passengers, outside and in, but none looking teacherish, hurried into the saloon. The boys scarcely knew whether to swear from disappointment or gratification, when a start from Mose drew their attention again to the stage. On the top step appeared a small shoe, above which was visible a small section of stocking far whiter and smaller than is usual in the mines. In an instant a similar ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... was. Taken before the tribunal, she was ordered to take the oath of liberty and equality, of hatred of the king, the queen, and royalty. "I will willingly take the first two oaths," she said; "I cannot take the last, it is not in my heart." A voice cried to her: "Swear; if you do not swear, you are dead." "Cry 'Vive la Nation!'" said several others, "and no harm will be done thee." "At that moment, she perceived at the corner of the little Rue Saint-Antoine something frightful, a soft and bloody mass upon which ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... then turn back towards the village by way of the beach, and you will meet the Coast-guard on duty, a stupid fellow called Vickers. Your horse by that time will be piping and roaring: he can go like the wind, but his own is broken. The moment you see Vickers, begin to swear at your horse. I have practised you in d—ns, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... inveigler, or be fought for, and become the prey of the strongest. One of our clerks, who was an outsider, used, in the height of this contest, to sit with his hat on, that he might be ready to rush out and swear before a surrogate any victim who was brought in. The system of inveigling continues, I believe, to this day. The last time I was in the Commons, a civil able-bodied person in a white apron pounced out upon me from a doorway, and whispering the word 'Marriage-licence' ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... plantation manager of Vailele) had never a lantern to signal with. The praam kept in. Many men in white were seen to stand up, step overboard, and wade to shore. At the same time the eye of panic descried a breastwork of "foreign stone" (brick) upon the beach. Samoans are prepared to-day to swear to its existence, I believe conscientiously, although no such thing was ever made or ever intended in that place. The hour is doubtful. "It was the hour when the streak of dawn is seen, the hour known in the warfare of heathen times as the hour of the night attack," says the Mataafa official ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the town, two slabs, standing exactly thirty paces apart, mark a similar episode, and the headless man is said to have run that distance before falling. This legend—which, furthermore, has many eye-witnesses still living in the town who swear to the truth—is more capable of belief if one takes into consideration the flight of a decapitated fowl in ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... Colonel, giving way, his face yellow with rage, chagrin and fear. "Kill me, for I swear to God that one or the other of us must die! Damn ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... no doubt whatever that some of the gentry who swear at large about the evils of missionaries would have been loud in their disgust at the entire absence of drink and debauchery, and the prevalence of what they would doubtless characterize as adjective ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... pieces. The cavalry of this unholy gang was but three garrons, string and bone. Worse than their ill-arming, as any soldier of experience will allow, were the jealousies between the two bodies of the scratched-up army. Did ever one see a Gael that nestled to an Irishman? Here's one who will swear it impossible, though it is said the blood is the same in both races, and we nowadays read the same Gaelic Bible. Colkitto MacDonald was Gael by birth and young breeding, but Erinach by career, and repugnant to ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... contemplate the cause of my country, deserted by all the world beside, and I standing up boldly alone, hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, without contemplating consequences, before Heaven, and in face of the world, I swear eternal fealty to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land of my life, my liberty, and my love. And who that thinks with me will not fearlessly adopt that oath that I take? Let none falter who thinks he is right, ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... said, "I have always cared for you. Surely you know that. By the saints of God I swear there has never been any other girl for me, and now there never will he. Perhaps I ought to have told you this before, and I wanted to do so when I met you in Rome. But it didn't seem fair, and I couldn't bring myself ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... once!" she called as she set her empty baskets on the kitchen table. "Just listen," she said to the girl, who came running. "I heard something to-day! That old Mertzheimer—he—he—oh, yea, why daren't I swear just this once! I'm that mad! That old Mertzheimer and the young one ought to be ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... declining day I swear! Verily, man is in the way of ruin; Excepting such as possess faith, And do the things which be right, And stir up one another to ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... of thy brother: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not commit adultery with the wife of thy neighbor: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not steal the property of thy brother: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not swear by my name falsely, for I visit the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of those who take my name in vain: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy brother: I am God, thy God. Thou shalt not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 401, September 8, 1883 • Various
... was a marvel, and he grunted. "The marvel is what they've been doing in the Tidewater, for from the Tidewater I'll swear they came." ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... Theodoric sent a Gothic priest; Adamantius in reply offered to come in person to Dyrrhachium if Soas and another Gothic noble were sent as hostages for his safe return. Theodoric was willing to send the hostages if Sabinianus would swear that they should return in safety. This, however, for some reason or other, the general surlily and stubbornly refused to do, and Adamantius saw the earnestly desired interview fading away into impossibility. At length, with courageous self-devotion, he succeeded in finding a by-path ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... little persuasion to stay at least one night. The prospect of that long solitary walk, of that tired stupid stooping figure dragging itself along the interminable country roads seemed a sheer impossibility. 'It is not—it isn't, I swear it—the other that beeps me back,' he had solemnly assured the friend that half smiled her relief at his acceptance, 'but—if you only knew how empty it's all got now; all reason gone even ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... himself on his morality, and expected to be saved by it, was constantly saying, "I am doing pretty well on the whole. I sometimes get mad and swear, but then I am strictly honest. I work on Sabbath when I am particularly busy, but I give a good deal to the poor, and I never was drunk in my life." This man hired a canny Scotchman to build a fence around his lot. He gave him very particular directions. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... can tell me I want to know. Why not exchange a little information, and then separate calmly, rather than indulge in pistol practice that can only mean the death of us both? For if your first bullet goes though my brain I swear my first will be ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... which followed was first broken by Pericles: "Phidias hides his face in his mantle; he is ashamed for Athens. But by the gods and the nether world, let us swear to his innocence." ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... even though Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, and Limerick were all built by the Danes. But a foundation had to be laid, and Froude felt bound also to make it clear that he did not take the old Whig view of Government as a necessary evil, or swear by the "dismal science" ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... possible for all without danger to shew their disposition toward the state." Thus spoke Germanus. And a great uproar ensued in the Roman army, for each one demanded the right to be the first to display to the general his loyalty to the emperor and to swear the most dread oaths ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... taken of it. When I appeared before the commission, I found a deposition attached to that of your father, and asked how they came by that. They answered that it had been sent to them. I requested them to take it off; that I had the deposition in my hand to which alone I would swear; they did so, and my deposition was attached. The next day (I think) I called, and told Mr. Jefferson what had passed, read to him the press copy, and asked him if he recollected having given to me the opinions I had detailed. He answered that he did not, but it might be so, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... cheerfully to Ardita, who had witnessed this last scene in withering silence, "if you will swear on your honor as a flapper—which probably isn't worth much—that you'll keep that spoiled little mouth of yours tight shut for forty-eight hours, you can row yourself ashore in ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... "solvent tenant test," (which was generally adopted by the Conservative barristers,) the claimant was obliged to swear and to prove that "he could obtain from a good and solvent tenant a clear yearly rent of ten pounds over and above what he paid himself," while the freeholder, qualifying under "the beneficial interest test," (which was acted on by the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... said Mr. White, pouring himself out some beer; "but for all that, the thing moved in my hand; that I'll swear to." ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... of my father's," says Dick, "as old as three men each of 'em, and not a notion of dying among 'em! They'll see me out, I'll swear!" ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... with a spoon and stopping between each mouthful to swear! That was what I saw and heard a brawny man doing not long since in a popular down-town restaurant. The action and the manner of speech did not harmonize. If I felt it borne in upon me that I must be a profane ...
— A String of Amber Beads • Martha Everts Holden
... all sorts. Enquiring how it came to pass that so many ships had miscarried this year, he tells me that he enquired; and the pilots do say, that they dare not do nor go but as the Captains will have them; and if they offer to do otherwise, the Captains swear they will run them through. He says that he heard Captain Digby (my Lord of Bristoll's son, a young fellow that never was but one year, if that, in the fleet,) say that he did hope he should not see a tarpawlin [Tarpawlin, a sailor.] have the command of a ship within this twelve months. He observed ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... the Apostle says (Heb. 6:16), "men swear by one greater than themselves; and an oath for confirmation is the end of all their controversy." Hence, since oaths are common to all, inordinate swearing is the matter of a special prohibition by a precept of the decalogue. According ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... Confessor!" he said, smiling. And he gave him some messages for me and Teresa—some directions about his affairs. Then he asked: "It is victory—isn't it? We have won, after all?" And the other—who knew—couldn't bear to tell him the truth. He said, "Yes." And Emilio said, "You swear it?" "I swear." And the boy made the sign of the cross—said again, Viva l'Italia!—and died.... They buried him that night under a little thicket. My God! I thank Thee that he did not lie on that ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... than lilacs,—no, Nor honeysuckle; thou art not more fair Than small white single poppies,—I can bear Thy beauty; though I bend before thee, though From left to right, not knowing where to go, I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there Find any refuge from thee, yet I swear So has it been with ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... of Mirth and Merriment, was, characteristically enough, regarded as deficient in the possession of immortality. The other divinities, fearing to lose him, petitioned Thor to make him immortal, and the prayer was granted on condition that every animal and plant would swear not to injure him. To secure this object, Nanna, Balder's wife, descended upon the earth. Loki, the God of Envy, followed her, disguised as a crow (which at that time were white), and settled on ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... making a good day with her: she was at the table of his majesty, and the king was exceeding pleased with her. And she said to his majesty, "Swear to me by God, saying, 'What thou shalt say, I will obey it for thy sake.'" He hearkened unto all that she said, even this. "Let me eat of the liver of the ox, because he is fit for nought:" thus spake she to him. And the king was exceeding sad at her words, the heart of Pharaoh grieved him greatly. ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... extremely pleasant, and raise laughter in any company. Yet I have heard that nothing at last could make him laugh but going down to the Bridge-foot at Oxford, and hearing the bargemen scold and storm and swear at one another; at which he would set his hands to his sides, and laugh most profusely; yet in his chamber so mute and mopish, that he was suspected to be felo de se." With what a fine strain of poetic feeling has a modern bard ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... he promised to restore them to harmony with the French and their enemies, and cause them to swear friendship with each other, to which end he said he would return to them as soon as he could. Thence he went to the country and village of the Atinouaentans, [224] where I had already been; the savages at his departure having conducted him for a distance ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... a Bible on the table. We had to stand in a row while he read a long list of regulations in which we were made to promise to obey all orders of officers and non-commissioned officers of His Majesty's Service. After that, he told us he would swear us in. We had to hold up the right hand above the head, and say, all ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave
... breathed heavily in his sleep. 'Alas! Alas!' continued she. 'Thou art proud in thy beauty and grace and lovely looks! But if thou art handsome, so am I; what then is this thou dost? Have they lessoned thee to flout me or has the wretched old man, my father, made thee swear not to speak to me to-night?' But he opened not his mouth neither awoke, whereat her passion redoubled and God inflamed her heart with love of him. She stole one glance at him that cost her a thousand sighs: her heart fluttered and her entrails yearned and she ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... toil. At night, fires mark the spots where work is most brisk, and the warehouses along the line are frequently illuminated from the street to the upper story: crowds of labourers, sailors, bargemen, and draymen cheer, and order, and swear in every language in use amongst this mixed population; and, above all, at regular intervals, rises the wild chorus of the slaves labouring in gangs, who, if miserable, are certainly the merriest miserables ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... hope therefore to soften me by flattery. You have daughters, you say; well, I am willing to pardon you if one of your daughters will come, of her own choice, to die in your place. Do not argue with me—go! And swear that if your daughters refuse to die in your place you will come ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... gallantry ever is known, to every man who served under him. And well loved was Charles Norie. He had lost an arm fighting on the Indian frontier. There have been many depressing optimists since August 1914 who every Autumn swear the war will end next spring, and every spring know it cannot last beyond next autumn. An answer given by one of our Sergeants was consonant to the serene spirit and resolution that filled the regiment and bid defiance to the future. Glancing at the General waving his one arm in the air, he answered ...
— With a Highland Regiment in Mesopotamia - 1916—1917 • Anonymous
... with Miss Capitola Black, the young woman here present, that he may identify her, whom he accuses of having shot six charges into him, before his death. She needn't deny it, because he is ready to swear to her!" said Mr. ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... hiding something from me! The papers said this morning that he also was a victim! Swear to me that he ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... as to her knowledge of chloroform, she broke down hopelessly. She did not know the smell of it; could not describe it; did not know whether it burnt or not; could not in fact swear that it was chloroform Dr. Wilde had used; would not swear that it was anything; believed that it was chloroform or something like it because she lost consciousness. That was her only reason for saying that chloroform had ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... "When I was placed upon the throne, did not you, N'Ampata, with all the other chiefs, swear allegiance and loyalty to me? Yet you have dared to break that oath. Why, then, should you not dare to break your oath to Sekosini? Was he greater than I, or his ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... might have seen and had the girl. Camille had once taken her out in a cab; she might have been to some man's. So I said I would not give the money unless I saw her virgin cunt first. After a day or two, Camille agreed to it if I would give her ten pounds down, and would swear never to disclose it ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... abandonment of Smolensk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the whole army is in despair that this most important place has been wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I swear to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before and might have lost half his army but could not have taken Smolensk. Our troops fought, and are fighting, as never before. With fifteen thousand men I held the enemy at bay for thirty-five hours and beat him; but he would ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... what they may in fort and barracks twixt this frontier and Philadelphia. The truth remains that I have been no man's mistress and am no trull. Euan, I have starved that I might remain exactly what I am at this moment. I swear to you that I stand here unsullied and unstained under this untainted sky which the same God made who fashioned me. I have known shame and grief and terror; I have lain cold and ill and sleepless; ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... others. The official answered that he should prefer to be sure of everything before calling in any one else. The patient had evidently lost his memory by some accident, and if he could not recall his own name it was not likely that he could recognise a face. Servants would swear that it was he, or not he, just as their interest suggested. Most of the people of his own class who knew him were out of town at the present season; and besides, the upper classes were not, in the Chief's opinion, a whit more intelligent or trustworthy than those that served them. The world, ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... benevolence, and flapped his handkerchief round Miss Dora, upon whose white cap the unlucky moth, frightened by its benefactor's vehemence, was fluttering wildly. Jack even forgot himself so far as to swear softly in French at the frightened insect as it flew wildly off at a tangent, not to the open window, but to Miss Leonora's candles, where it came to an immediate end. Miss Leonora sat rather grimly looking ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... did n't speak to her first," he told himself; "I shall only be telling a lie, and they 'll make me swear it, too!" ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... reminded us of public-house life in Europe. All went on in the distillery and the public-house as calmly and quietly as the work in the house of a well-to-do country squire in Sweden who does not swear and ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... for their interest and welfare. But until this can be done, the laws now in existence, and not in conflict with the constitution of the United States, will be continued until changed by competent authority; and those persons who hold office will continue in the same for the present, provided they swear to support that constitution, and to ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... that I liked the looks of all these gentry, or believed everything that they told me. For instance, when such people swear that they have been wrongly convicted, an old lawyer and magistrate like myself, who knows what pains are taken by every English Court to safeguard the innocent, is apt to be sceptical. Still, it should be added that many of these jailbirds ...
— Regeneration • H. Rider Haggard
... spot where we last parted, you told me that you loved her, I swear to you, if need be, that I rejoiced. I was glad that she would have you to make the future smooth for her. Later I grew to envy you. It was for your safety, as well as mine and hers, that I decided to see neither of you again until she had been some time ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... "Falada is more suitable for me, and my nag will do for thee" and the princess had to be content with that. Then the waiting-maid, with many hard words, bade the princess exchange her royal apparel for her own shabby clothes; and at length she was compelled to swear by the clear sky above her, that she would not say one word of this to any one at the royal court, and if she had not taken this oath she would have been killed on the spot. But Falada saw all ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... If something does not happen soon, I swear I'll cut and run. It wouldn't take a great deal to make me quit. The pluck of the rebels rather tickles me. I've half a mind to toss my luck among them, and stand ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... greengrocers. One would think that Under Town lived on vegetables. The explanation is that the greengrocers can come here, and, in tidying up their carts, can throw their refuse upon the roadway, as they would not be allowed to do in 'higher class' streets. They swear genially at ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... not, by all the saints I swear On these bleak mountains still to dwell, Nor ever quit my toilsome care, But for the ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the door on the pitied person. If she had thought Kathleen Somers had a future, she wouldn't have been so kind. I may give it to you as my private opinion that Mildred Thurston wanted Withrow herself. I can't swear to it, even now; but I suspected it sufficiently to feel that some one, for Withrow's sake had better see Kathleen besides his exuberant and slangy cousin. She danced a little too much on Kathleen ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... answered, "This much at least I can disprove, for I swear"—and on my sword-hilt I swore it in that place—"I swear I will never set foot in the Great Hall till the Lady AElueva ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... realize to what extent the authorities of the Middle Ages tried to seal the fountains of truth. Picture a man kneeling before the authorities at Rome and stating: "With a sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies. I swear that for the future I will never say nor assert anything verbally or in writing which may give rise to a {463} similar suspicion against me."[3] Thus he was compelled to recant and deny his theory that the earth moves around ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... commands, to get so much amber that she might secretly buy for me, against my birthday, the Opera Sancti Augustini, which the Cantor at Wolgast wanted to sell. That it was not her fault that the young lord lay in wait for her one night; and that she would swear to me, by the living God, that naught that was unseemly had happened between them there, and that ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... amusement. She hung head downwards from the tree-stem and hammered at it on the ground, but it shifted about, and she made no way; then she carried it in her beak and tried fitting it into various places. I hope she did not swear at it, but she seemed to think the thing was possessed, for it was not like the ordinary nuts: she could manage them; they would go into holes in the bark; this wouldn't fit anywhere, and yet she could not give it up. At last, by a bright ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... that would surely be engendered by debate on the subject that would come up in the Legislature. I have said all I intend to say on the subject of ratification. While I will take my medicine I will never swear that it tastes good, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... Our readers, we swear, know everything. One of them writes from La Crosse that Debussy's "Canope" has nothing to do with the planet Canopus, but refers to the ancient Egyptian city of that name. Mebbe so (we should like proof of it), but what of it?—as Nero remarked when they told him Rome was afire. ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... pail down and clutched him by both hands. "Say you are not married," she demanded; "say it, swear it!" ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... his drunkenness in word and deed—try to repeat, or rather act over his most brutal deeds (from which for decency's sake, he was instantly restrained by extraordinary exertion and severe rebuke)—snap and grate his teeth most furiously, strike and swear, while his eyes flashed like the fires of an orthodox perdition. We have heard him hiss, and seen him writhe his body like the serpent when crawling, and dart out his tongue, and play it exactly like that reptile. These exhibitions were intermingled with ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... is (or ought to be) known at Scotland Yard, too. But does he know, or does his Station know, or does Scotland Yard know, or does anybody know, why these fellows should be here at liberty, when, as reputed Thieves to whom a whole Division of Police could swear, they might all be under lock and key at hard labour? Not he; truly he would be a wise man if he did! He only knows that these are members of the 'notorious gang,' which, according to the newspaper Police- office reports ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... meetings the three wicked men decided that they would pay some one to kill the king, first making the murderer they chose swear that he would never tell who had ordered him to do the terrible deed. It was not very difficult to find a man bad enough to take money for such an evil purpose, and the next thing to do was to decide where and when the deed was to be done. Putraka had been ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... Duyvil, on both sides of the river, all the skaters swore at the weather, as profane persons no doubt did when the windows of heaven were opened in Noah's time. The skateresses did not swear, but savagely said, "It is too bad,"—and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... th' downfall. Choosdah he was settin' in front iv th' fire with a pipe in his mouth. 'Why, Terrence,' says me mother, 'ye're smokin' again.' 'I'm not,' says he: ''tis a dhry smoke,' he says; ''tisn't lighted,' he says. Wan week afther th' swear-off he came fr'm th' field with th' pipe in his face, an' him puffin' away like a chimney. 'Terrence,' says me mother, 'it isn't Easter morn.' 'Ah-ho,' says he, 'I know it,' he says; 'but,' he says, 'what th' divvle do I care?' he says. 'I wanted ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... Time's change more wondrous, I am her sun, and she (Herself doth swear) the moon; Or she the ship upon ...
— Poems New and Old • John Freeman
... man's means permit him to marry, he should then look intelligently for her with whom he expects to pass the remainder of his life in perfect loyalty, and in sincerity and singleness of heart. Seek her to whom he is ready to swear to be ever true. ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... nervous havin' 'im round. Zimmerman—he's the clothes-presser—tried to talk Goiman to 'im this mornin' an' th' guy pretended like his feelin's wuz hoit, an' he never knowed th' Hun's language, he says. An' Elsie says she's prepared to swear he talked Goiman easy enough ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... constrained." "Certes," spake Saladin, "A noble dame—the like not won, once lost— How many days remain?" "Ten days, my prince, And twelvescore leagues between my heart and me: Alas! how to be passed?" Then Saladin— "Lo! I am loath to lose thee—wilt thou swear To come again if all go well with thee, Or come ill speeding?" "Yea, I swear, my king, Out of true love," quoth Torel, "heartfully." Then Saladin, "Take here my signet-seal; My admiral will loose his swiftest sail Upon its sight; and cleave the seas, and go And clip thy dame, and say ...
— Indian Poetry • Edwin Arnold
... Brian, "but I swear by the Wind and the Sun that if thou hadst seven lives I would ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... their words were not so clear. I told Overton when he came back, but the man was gone then. You ask me how I dare think she could tell something of this if she chose. Well, I can't help it. She is wearing a ring I'll swear I saw Lee Holly wear three years ago, at a card table in Seattle. I'll swear it! And he is lying here dead in her room, with a knife sticking in him that she had possession of to-day. Now, gentlemen, what do you think of ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan
... even religion your stalking-horse to get the world, you fear not God. And what will you do whose hearts go after your covetousness? you who are led by covetousness up and down, as it were by the nose; sometimes to swear, to lie, to cozen, and cheat and defraud, when you can get the advantage to do it. You are far, very far, from the fear of God. "Ye adulterers and adulteresses," for so the covetous are called, "know ye not ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... on the table," said Sir Reginald. "Can you swear this is the keg you took from the prisoner?" he asked of ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... mighty fear—I, who have lived my life among men, and have never known the meaning of fear, have been harassed by a multitude of fears. From the moment of our first meeting I have loved you. And, by all the saints, I swear you are the only woman I have ever loved! And, yet, I feared to tell you of that love. Twice the words have trembled on my tongue, and remained unspoken, because I feared that you might spurn me. Then in my heart rose another fear, and I ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... the Hall-Beadle, or Poet Nuntius." Well, it is the strangest letter that ever I read. Is this the man, my son so oft hath praised To be the happiest, and most precious wit That ever was familiar with Art? Now, by our Lady's blessed son, I swear, I rather think him most unfortunate In the possession of such holy gifts, Being the master of so loose a spirit. Why, what unhallowed ruffian would have writ With so profane a pen unto his friend? The modest paper e'en ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... Marlin. It is fortunate that we have a sheriff who has the grit to stand his ground. He says a telegram or telephone message will summon him to Harleigh or Hazleton at a moment's notice, and he will swear our Coal and ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... interrupting him, with a smile upon his lips, although he almost felt as if he were going to die; "I swear I should not care for that, nor should I in any way contradict you; for you must know, my dear marquis, that for all matters which concern myself I am a block of ice; but it is a very different thing when an absent friend is concerned, a friend, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you, man!" said the corporal, sternly. "When I touched fut in New York, didn't I swear that I'd never dhraw swoord more, barrin' it was agin the ould red tyrant and oprissor of me counthry? Wasn't I glad to be dhrivin' me own hack next year in Philamedink like a gintleman? Oh, the paice and the indipindence of it! But what cud I do when the counthry that tuk me and was good ...
— Old Man Savarin and Other Stories • Edward William Thomson
... which it affirms has been made out, I should have no uneasiness as to the result of this debate. But I know that no member weighs the words of a resolution for which he is asked to vote, as he would weigh the words of an affidavit which he was asked to swear. And I am aware that some persons, for whose humanity and honesty I entertain the greatest respect, are inclined to divide with the right honourable Baronet, not because they think that he has proved his case, but because they have taken up a notion that we are making war for the purpose ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Charles had the precaution of dressing me in a less tawdry flaunting style than were the clothes I escaped to him in, and of passing me for his wife, that she had secretly married, and kept private (the old story) on account of his friends, I dare swear this appeared extremely apocryphal to a woman who knew the town so well as she did; but that was the least of her concern: it was impossible to be less scruple-ridden than she was; and the advantage of letting her rooms being her sole object, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... his Compliment. Why, this is worse than t'other.—What shall I do in this case?—should I speak and undeceive them, they would swear 'twere to save my Jems: and to part with 'em—Zoz, how simply should I look!—but hang't, when I have married her, they are my own again. [Gives the Rings, and falls back into Grimaces. Leander whispers ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... was a sternness in his eye, Which chilled the soul—one knew not why— But when returning vigour came, And kindled the dark glare to flame, So fierce it flashed, one well might swear, A ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... was a cripple and both legs were twisted out of shape—he hobbled about on crutches. "Jake" was eleven—two of his eleven years he had spent in a reformatory where he had learned to chew tobacco and to swear. ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... duty, could exhibit my son as being in danger of his life, and thereby cause alarm in his mother and sisters: do you think that men so lost to all sense of shame, and so devoted to every thing that is corrupt; do you think they would hesitate one moment to bribe villains to swear falsely against you or against me or against any man, whom they thought it their interest to destroy? Nay, do you think that they would hesitate one single half moment to be guilty, for such a purpose, of the blackest perjury themselves? Be you assured, that there is ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... no business there," said he, "and to prove to you that I am right I'll swear divil a thing is there in the peak but cargo gear and other stores. I'll go down myself and face the ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... Launcelot—curbing in his mouth-foaming steed, and fixing his spear in the rest—"I needed not to be here reminded of your kindness to my forefathers, or of the necessity of doing every thing, at such a crisis, beseeming the honour of a true round-table knight.—Yes, gracious sovereign, I swear to you by the love I bear to THE LADY OF THE LAKE[221]—by the remembrance of the soft moments we have passed together in the honey-suckle bowers of her father—by all that an knight of chivalry is taught to believe ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... stay there," said Germinie; "not a word to mademoiselle. That's all. Swear you won't say a word ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... laughed back. And we looked into each other's eyes in sympathetic appreciation of raw turnip. As he wiped the blade of his knife he added, "If I didn't know it wasn't so, I would swear we played together as children. Most young ladies, of this age, do not care ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... him into the gathering gloom. 'Still, "a spear for a spear and a shield for a shield," as our saying runs. I have spoken no lie. The king does mean to fight, not because he wants to, but because the regiments swear that they will wash their assegais; they who have never seen blood since that battle of the Tugela in which we two played a part, and if he will not suffer it, well, there are more of his race! Also he means to fight ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... half drowned in his seat. I was that hungry I got in for Chitina. There was one other climbed in after me, and I wondered what sort of fool he was. I said something about being starved or I'd have hung to the train. The other didn't answer. Then I began to swear. I did, Alan. I cursed terrible. Swore at the Government for building such a road, swore at the rain, an' I swore at myself for not bringin' along grub. I said my belly was as empty as a shot-off cartridge, and I said ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... decidedly ungentlemanly to propose to a girl if she had money and you had none. Moreover, it was extremely selfish to remove a girl from a comfortable position to a poorer one, though she might positively swear she preferred it; and lastly, it was unwise for various reasons, to be too amiable to the girl, or to give any but the dimmest ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... chewin' de rag 'bout all dis," cried Blanco, seeing where he might square himself with Ward and Simms easily. "Does yo' take back all us sailormen, Mr. Ward, an' promise not t' punish none o' us, ef we swear to stick by ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... heard of your tricks. So! finding the will not quite to your mind, knowing that the executor would balk your schemes, you threw the will into the fire; you robbed the house of all the cash, and made off with the girl!—The old fellow saw it all, and will swear to ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... moving caught my eyes, and I swear I saw a child—a living child coming from the burning city—running madly, breathlessly from a wave of glowing lava that threatened to engulf him at any moment. In spite of all the ridicule that has been showered upon me, I still ...
— The Undersea Tube • L. Taylor Hansen
... N.Y.: Swear out warrant for arrest of Clara La Croix, charge of smuggling, and mail at once ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... enumeration of their favourite foibles. But the climax is reached in the confessions of the "Wife of Bath," who quite unhesitatingly says that women are best won by flattery and busy attentions; that when won they desire to have the sovereignty over their husbands, and that they tell untruths and swear to them with twice the boldness of men;—while as to the power of their tongue, she quotes the second-hand authority of her fifth husband for the saying that it is better to dwell with a lion or a foul dragon, than with a woman accustomed to chide. It ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... examined, and his evidence proved similar to that of the first. The day-book was sent for, and the day in August —— referred to; there was a name written down on the side of the page, which the shopman said he had no doubt, indeed he could almost swear, was the gentleman's name, as there was no other name put down on that day. The name, as taken down, was Derbennon. This was all the information we could obtain, and we then quitted the shop, and drove off without there being any recognition of me on the part ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... that there is no putting a pig in the right way." Sometimes rather cruel tricks were played on the credulous poet. One evening Goldsmith came in clamorous for his supper, and ordered chops. Directly the supper came in, the wags, by pre-agreement, began to sniff and swear. Some pushed the plate away; others declared the rascal who had dared set such chops before a gentleman should be made to swallow them himself. The waiter was savagely rung up, and forced to eat the supper, to which he consented ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... questioning, contradicting, and otherwise ingeniously tormenting the check-takers and porters of the establishment. One pompous official, in particular, became so helplessly indignant that he retired into a little office overlooking the platform, and was heard to swear fluently, all by himself, for several minutes. The time having expired and the doors being opened, we passed out with the rest of the home-going Parisians, and were about to take our places, when Mueller, climbing like a cat to the roof-seats on the top of the ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... at me and began to swear. He took me for a maniac,—a wild, crazy man, and told me the best thing I could do would be to go below and turn in, and he would take me back to my friends, if ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... I cried. "You have come to the end of your tricks now. I will have no more of them. Listen to what I say." I strode across and shook her roughly by the shoulder "As sure as there is a God in heaven, I swear that if you try another of your deviltries upon me I will have your life for it. Come what may, I will have your life. I have come to the end of ...
— The Parasite • Arthur Conan Doyle
... rose risen run ran run say said said see saw seen set set set shake shook shaken shine shone shone show showed shown shrink shrank shrunk sing sang sung sit sat sat slink slunk slunk speak spoke spoken spend spent spent spit spit spit spat spat steal stole stolen swear swore sworn sweep swept swept swim swam swum take took taken tear tore torn throw threw thrown thrust thrust thrust tread trod trod trodden wake woke waked waked wear wore worn weave wove woven weep wept wept ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... begin and probably come to the conclusion in the end it was the fault of the band that the tune never quite came off. On the other hand Gallagher, whatever suspicions he might have, couldn't possibly swear that we were playing anything objectionable. I wonder if there's a version of 'God Save the King' with ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... thief, I'll swear that there was half a bottle left when I took my last glass; for I held the bottle up to the candle to ascertain ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... out to my address to my constituents at King's Lynn, and to my speech in answer to Peel's manifesto. Pray read it. At first I thought I could swear to its being * * * *, I now think I can swear to its being * * * *; the servility to Peel, and the official red-tape style would equally do for either; but the no-popery page, I think, fixes it on ...
— Lord George Bentinck - A Political Biography • Benjamin Disraeli
... mistaken, for the Corinthians and Argives and Boeotians, and the other states, were quite willing to let them go, and swore and covenanted, that, if he would pay them money, they would make over to him the Hellenes of the continent, and we alone refused to give them up and swear. Such was the natural nobility of this city, so sound and healthy was the spirit of freedom among us, and the instinctive dislike of the barbarian, because we are pure Hellenes, having no admixture of barbarism in us. For we are not like many others, descendants ...
— Menexenus • Plato
... if not a dreadful sinner, and I admit the fact without controversy. I do not have at hand a list of the cardinal sins, but I suspect I might prove an alibi as to some of them. I don't get drunk; I don't swear; I go to church; and I contribute, mildly, to charity. But, for all that, I'm free to confess myself a sinner. Yet, I still don't know what sin is, or what is the way of salvation either for myself or for my pupils. I grope around all the while trying to find this way. At times, I think they ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... in Piccadilly. He was with some flapper type of girl, in the detestable phrase (as she thought it) by which the detestable products of the war (as she thought them) were called. He was just getting into a cab. She called out to him, astounded. She heard him swear and he jumped into the cab and was driven away. She didn't tell Harry. Harry found out. It came out that the boy for overstaying his leave was to be court-martialled. She did not know what Harry did. She noticed in those ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... think that!" said Gervase, looking at her dazzling face with a passion of admiration he made no attempt to conceal. "Men on the whole are not as cruel or as treacherous as women. I would swear, looking at you, that, beautiful as you are, you are cruel, and that is perhaps why I love you! You are like a splendid tigress waiting ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... and his silk hat settled far back on his neck. Next he unbuttoned his waistcoat and loosened his braces; but no, he could not skip—his boots were too tight. He looked at each tree as he passed. "If I could only see"—he muttered. "I'll swear there used to be one on the right, ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of mixed blood jabbered in French, Cree, and Chipewyan chiefly, but when they wanted to swear, they felt the inadequacy of these mellifluous or lisping tongues, and fell back on virile Saxon, whose tang, projectivity, and wealth of vile epithet evidently supplied a long-felt want in the Great Lone Land ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... you?" Dallas pursued. "Fanny made me swear to do three things while I was in Paris: get her the score of the last Debussy songs, go to the Grand-Guignol and see Madame Olenska. You know she was awfully good to Fanny when Mr. Beaufort sent her over from Buenos Ayres to ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... that you are not the Princess Yetive," he continued emphatically; "but what can I do; the men won't believe me. They swear they have been tricked and are panic-stricken over the situation. The hunters tell them that the Axphain authorities, fully aware of the hurried flight of the Princess through these wilds, are preparing to intercept ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... fired the fuse what did you waste precious seconds looking for? If I wasn't too scared to notice anything clearly I'd swear you found something ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... a week passed but he went either once or twice a-hunting, sometimes in the environs of the city, sometimes farther off; at which time the villages through which he passed felt the effects of his generosity, which gained him the love and blessings of the people: and it was common for them to swear by his head. Thus, without giving the least umbrage to the sultan, to whom he paid all imaginable respect, Aladdin, by his affable behavior and liberality, had won the affections of the people, and was more beloved than the sultan himself. With all these good qualities he showed a courage ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... merely a great big village; and mainly mud and thatch. The streets were muddy, crooked, unpaved. The populace was an ever flocking and drifting swarm of rags, and splendors, of nodding plumes and shining armor. The king had a palace there; he saw the outside of it. It made him sigh; yes, and swear a little, in a poor juvenile sixth century way. We saw knights and grandees whom we knew, but they didn't know us in our rags and dirt and raw welts and bruises, and wouldn't have recognized us if we had hailed them, nor stopped to answer, either, it being unlawful to speak with slaves on a chain. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to-morrow morning. God grant she may not have gone down! but every ship that comes in brings intelligence of a terrible gale (which indeed was felt ashore here) on the night of the fourteenth; and the sea-captains swear (not without some prejudice, of course) that no steamer could have lived through it, supposing her to have been in its full fury. As there is no steam-packet to go to England, supposing the Caledonia not to arrive, we are obliged to send our letters by the Garrick ship, which sails early ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... effect" of a page of writing. It is sometimes startling to see the resemblance in "picture effect" between the music pages of different composers. The handsomely abused Perosi, for instance, writes many a page, which, if held at arm's length, you would swear was one of Palestrina's. Some of Mr. Whiting's music has a decidedly Brahmsic picture effect. This feeling is emphasized when one remembers the enthusiasm shown for Brahms in Whiting's concerts, where the works of the Ursus Minor of Vienna hold ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... the bailiff; "I will swear both an assault and an attempt to a rescue. If officers are to be used in this manner, there is an end of all law and justice. But, though I am not a match for you myself, I have those below that are." He then ran to the door and called up two ill-looking ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... fierce oaths between his teeth, then cried in a piteous voice, "Unbind me, good young masters! I have five little children at home. By Saint Bavon I swear to give you each a ten-guilder piece if you will ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... believe a man when he asks for vodka. The people are all mean, vile, spoilt. Take these waiters, for instance. They have countenances like professors, and grey heads; they get two hundred roubles a month, they live in houses of their own and send their girls to the high school, but you may swear at them and give yourself airs as much as you please. For a rouble the engineer will gulp down a whole pot of mustard and crow like a cock. On my honour, if one of them would take offence I would make him a present of a ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... the mark, O my soul—at whom again are we to launch our shafts of honour from a friendly mind? At Akragas will I take aim, and will proclaim and swear it with a mind of truth, that for a hundred years no city hath brought forth a man of mind more prone to well-doing towards friends or of ...
— The Extant Odes of Pindar • Pindar
... (which even to-day, in spite of all our "progress," flourishes among both the rich and the poor) crystallised in the purpose of the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge—whose motto was, and is "Nullius in verba" (that is, "We swear by no man's words"), and whose original first rule, to be observed at its meetings, was that no one should discourse of his opinions or narrate a marvel, but that any member who wished to address the society should "bring in," that ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... I hear our next move is there. I'll try to show myself to be what my father wished me. I don't suppose I shall—but I'll try in my feeble way. That much I swear—here over his body. So ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... hieron, kai theos, kai horkos, kai agalma.] This Atlas (of which I have been speaking) is a mountain with a cavity, and of a tolerable height, which the natives esteem both as a temple and a Deity: and it is the great object by which they swear; and to which they pay their devotions. The cave in the mountain was certainly named Co-el, the house of God; equivalent to Coelus of the Romans. To this the people made their offerings: and this was the heaven which Atlas was supposed to support. It seems ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant
... that of the Sicilians, clothes them with an equal reality. There is scarcely a loch in that country, in which the remains of cities have not been at various times discovered; and many men have been met with who would solemnly swear they saw, and who no doubt did see, representations of them in certain states of the atmosphere. The most celebrated is that which occurs on the lake of Killarney. This romantic sheet of water is bounded on one side by a semi-circle of ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... sufficed. The Country Gentlemen were then of a very furious way of thinking concerning the rights of the present Illustrious House to the Throne; but Times do alter, and so likewise do Men's Thoughts and Opinions, and I dare swear there is no Brunswicker or Church of England man more leal at this ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... little children which we meet, Amongst the sports and pastimes in the street, We very often hear them curse and swear, Before they've learned a word ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... human wisdom," said Toussaint, "that a man should swear that he will be always wise? What is human virtue, that he should pledge his salvation on governing well? I dare not ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... villain shall not live! War. I'll have his blood, or die in seeking it. Pem. The like oath Pembroke takes. Lan. And so doth Lancaster. Now send our heralds to defy the king; And make the people swear to ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... were against reason, said the king, I swear, so mote I thee:[91] My horse is better than thy mare, And that thou well ...
— The Book of Brave Old Ballads • Unknown
... going away and getting over it the best way I could. So you see I must by nature be your sworn enemy, only it's of no use, for I've fallen in love with you at first sight. So now, if you will ask me to sit down, I will swear to let bygones be bygones, and be your true knight and devoted servant as long as I live. How you do remind me of your mother, only by Jove, you're twice ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... likewise to regard your friends As creatures sent to serve your ends. Be prompt to lie: there is no wit In telling truth, to lose by it. And knock down worth, bespatter merit: Don't stint—all will your scandal credit. Be bumptious, bully, swear, and fight— And all will ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... it belongs to your character, and therefore, to remove all diffidence from you, I swear by Styx I will do no manner of harm, either to you or your friends, for anything which you say, however offensive it may be to my love or my pride, but will send you away from my island with all marks of my friendship. Tell me ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... not name him, Nor give you any Character to know him; But if you dare, and instantly ride forth At the west port of the City, and defend there My reputation, against all you meet, For two hours only, I'le not swear Dinant, To satisfie, (though sure I think I shall) What ever you desire, if you denie this, Be desperate, for willingly, by this light, I'le never ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... the Nation, arise in might! And then swear by the God we adore, This vicious crowd shall be put to flight, And forever ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... As nought abides to swear by, folly seen So plain and heard so loud might well nigh make Wise men believe in even the devil and God. What ails you? Whence comes lightning in your eyes, With hissing hints of thunder on your lips? Fools! ...
— The Duke of Gandia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... streets, or smashing a window. Last time it was for a fight with a poor man with a large family. He got up the fight on purpose, and as both were about to be apprehended, he says to the man he was fighting with, 'Jack, give me half-a-crown and I'll swear all the blame on myself;' poor Jack was glad to accept the offer, so when they were taken before the magistrate the old beauty said—'Please sir, it was me that assaulted that man, and as I am entirely in the fault I hope you will give me all the punishment.' So Jack got out rejoicing, ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... the Fortunes of Nigel (chapter ii.), swear "by the bones of the immortal Napier.'' It would perhaps be rank heresy to suppose that Sir Walter did not know that "Napier's bones'' were an apparatus for purposes of calculation, but he certainly puts the expression in such an ambiguous form that many of his readers are likely to suppose ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... for Lord Charlemont, that he was loyal to the death. He was not romantic in the style of expressing himself,—he would not have understood how to swear fealty on a drawn sword—but when he said—'I'm game,'-it came to the same thing. Reversing his car, he sped away, whizzing up the road like a boomerang, back to Badsworth Hall. Maryllia watched him till he was out of sight,—then with a sigh of relief, she turned and look wistfully at the ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... think she has had time to invent anything yet; but she pretends there is something, and says if I don't give you up, if I don't swear never to look at you again, ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... at least," was his only comment, and then he returned to his self-assumed occupation of fluently cursing the steering wheel. I once heard a pirate swear, but his best efforts would have seemed like those of a tyro alongside of Perry's ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... straps, prevarication in their trousers, and connivance in their distended braces. We never met but one exception to the above rule—it was John Smith. Every reader has a friend of the name of John Smith—in confidence, that is the man. We would have sworn by him; in fact, we did swear by him, for ten long years he was our oracle. Never shall we forget the first, the only time our faith was shaken. We gazed upon and loved his honest face; we reciprocated the firm pressure of his manly grasp; our eyes descended in admiration even unto the ground on which he stood, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, July 24, 1841 • Various
... these three clubs will undertake to help the people to stop being an abstraction, to swear off from being a Ghost in their own house. The great working majority of the American people—of the men and the women who made the Red Cross so effective during the war, which came to the rescue of the people of the nation with the people of other nations, ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee
... care for the Injoyment, but to let you see I have ta'en deliberated Malice to thee, and will be revenged on one Whore for the Sins of another; I will smile and deceive thee, flatter thee, and beat thee, kiss and swear, and lye to thee, imbrace thee and rob thee, as she did me, fawn on thee, and strip thee stark naked, then hang thee out at my Window by the Heels, with a Paper of scurvey Verses fasten'd to thy Breast, in praise of damnable Women— Come, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... it discovers the genius of parties, may be worth relating. Sir John Lambe urging him to prosecute the Puritans, the prelate asked what sort of people these same Puritans were. Sir John replied, "that to the world they seemed to be such as would not swear, whore, or be drunk; out they would lie, cozen, and deceive; that they would frequently hear two sermons a day, and repeat them too, and that some, times they would fast all day long." This character must be conceived to be satirical; yet it may be allowed, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... success. Hopeless of success in the projects of accommodation which they laid before the king, and unable to bring him into Scotland in face of the refusal of the General Assembly to receive a sovereign who would not swear to the Covenant, the Scottish army in January 1647 accepted L400,000 in discharge of its claims, handed Charles over to a Committee of the Houses, and marched back over the Border. The success of their diplomacy restored the confidence of the Houses. ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... Oh! why do you disbelieve everything I tell you? What object do you think I have in coming here, except to save you from utter ruin, to save you from the consequence of a hideous mistake? That letter that is burnt now WAS your letter. I swear ...
— Lady Windermere's Fan • Oscar Wilde
... which violates all the proprieties of literary language. Look at the full-length portrait in the Life of Sterling. Each oracle denies his predecessor, each magician breaks the wand of the one who went before him. There were Americans enough ready to swear by Carlyle until he broke his staff in meddling with our anti-slavery conflict, and buried it so many fathoms deep that it could never be fished out again. It is rather singular that Johnson and Carlyle should each of them have shipwrecked his sagacity and shown a terrible leak in ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... We hope that the President will, with courage, refuse to listen to the speech of evil counsellors and heed the voice of conscience and of honour. We further hope that he will renew his promise to protect the Republic; and will publicly swear that a monarchical ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... the more I couldn't help seein' and believin' that it was right and fair to free the niggers and let them have a fair show and a white man's chance—votin' and all. That's what I call a fair hack, and I swear, Mr. Le Moyne, I don't know how it may seem to you, but to my mind any man that ain't willing to let any other man have that, is a damn coward! I'm as white as anybody, and hain't no more reason to stand ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... in a picture. The dress is the picture—this common white dress, with black spots, une robe a poix, une petite confection de soixante cinq francs, as the French would say; and very far it is from all remembrance of the diaphanous, fairy-like skirts of our eighteenth century English school, but I swear to you no less charming. It is a very simple and yet a very beautiful reality. A lady, in white dress with black spots, sitting on a red sofa, a dark chocolate red, in the subdued light of her own quiet, prosaic French appartment, le deuxieme au dessus l'entre-sol. The drawing is less ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... by these ruffians, and compelled to make known where the guns and ammunition were hidden. The poor woman, surrounded by her dear children (who were from time to time pushed back by these soldiers), answered that she could swear before the holy God that there was not a single gun or cartridge or anything of that sort hidden on that farm. In the meantime the curtains were destroyed by the smoke and flames to ashes. The house, at least, was not attacked by the flames, but the low, mean lot put at the four corners ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... Worship?" quoth the landlord, calling the Tinker Worship to soothe him, as a man would pour oil upon angry water. "I saw no knave with Your Worship, for I swear no man would dare call that man knave so nigh to Sherwood Forest. A right stout yeoman I saw with Your Worship, but I thought that Your Worship knew him, for few there be about here that pass him ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle
... such a man as Hugh Peters; saying that it had been better for the poor Cavalier never to have come with the King into England again; for he that hath the impudence to deny obedience to the lawful magistrate, and to swear to the oath of allegiance, &c., was better treated now-a-days in Newgate, than a poor Royalist that hath suffered all his life for the King, is at White Hall ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... expected to be punished as his fellows were; but this—this was awful. He clinched his hands until the nails dug into the palms. His face was as pale as death. He sweated with the consuming fire of impotent rage. He wished that he might run away somewhere where he could hide and tear things and swear. For a moment only he entertained the thought, and then a look into the determined face of the woman at his side drove the thought away. To his childish eyes, distorted by resentment, she was an implacable and relentless monster who would follow him ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... an oath is sometimes called a sacrament: for it is written in the Decretals (Caus. xxii, qu. 5): "Children who have not attained the use of reason must not be obliged to swear: and whoever has foresworn himself once, must no more be a witness, nor be allowed to take a sacrament," i.e. an oath. But an oath is not a kind of sign, therefore it seems that a sacrament is ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... recent dinner at Cambridge, Professor Humphry, who came to Cambridge to commence what has been a brilliant career by a journey on the "Star" coach, lightly hit off Joe Walton, the driver of the "Star," as a man who "used to swear like a trooper and ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... least of no inferior interest, except what results from a less felicitous choice of situation! 'Roxana.' 'Singleton,' 'Moll Flanders,' 'Colonel Jack,' are all genuine offspring of the same father. They bear the veritable impress of De Foe. An unpractised midwife that would not swear to the nose, lip, forehead, and eye of every one of them! They are in their way as full of incident, and some of them every bit as romantic; only they want the uninhabited island, and the charm that has bewitched the world, of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... not altogether free from a suspicion that Mrs Thorne knew the story of Johnny's love and was trying to serve Johnny,—as other people had tried to do, very ineffectually. When this suspicion came upon her she would shut her heart against her lover's praises, and swear that she would stand by those two letters which she had written in her book at home. But the suspicion would not always be there, and there did come upon her a conviction that her lover was more esteemed among men and women than she had been accustomed to believe. Her cousin, Bernard Dale, who ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... also decidedly ungentlemanly to propose to a girl if she had money and you had none. Moreover, it was extremely selfish to remove a girl from a comfortable position to a poorer one, though she might positively swear she preferred it; and lastly, it was unwise for various reasons, to be too amiable to the girl, or to give any but the dimmest clue to ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... Sicilian king from his Italian dominions. The offers which William made were, namely: to pay a sum equivalent to that tendered by Emanuel; to surrender the three sea-ports in question as an indemnification for the damage done by Scitinius; and to swear fealty to the pope as the ...
— Pope Adrian IV - An Historical Sketch • Richard Raby
... Madame the Virgin, to this end, to thank her for the liberty of my dear wife; and the other for my said patron, if I am successful in my undertaking to liberate the bondswoman Tiennette here present, and for which I rely upon his assistance. Moreover, I swear by my eternal salvation, to persevere with courage in this affair, to spend therein all I process, and only to quit it with my life. God has heard me," said he. "And you, little one," he ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... and it isn't. I wanted to see Christine. You won't believe me, I know, but I've been worried to death about her ever since she left me. Ask Sangster, if you don't believe me. I swear to you that, if it were possible, I'd give my right hand this minute to undo all the rotten past and start again. I suppose it's too late. I suppose she hates me. She said she did that last night in London. She looks as if she does now. The way she asked me if ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... experience that he was in one of those aching miseries which make men turn to such as she, slipped from the shadows and murmured to him. She was taller than he, and had to bend her long slender neck that he might hear. He hated her for being a streetwalker and for being taller than he, and began to swear at her. But before he could get the words out of his mouth she had wiped the smile from her pale oval face with the adeptness of a proud woman who had long preserved her pride in the fields of contempt, and glided away with a dignity that denied what she was and what ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Messieurs Simeuse are here," said the abbe, "I would give ten pints of my blood and my right arm to save them; but if Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne is in the secret she has not—and this I swear on my eternal salvation—betrayed it in any way, neither has she done me the honor to consult me. I am now very glad of her discretion, if discretion there be. We played cards last night as usual, at boston, in almost complete silence, until half-past ten o'clock, and we neither saw nor heard ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... each other's hand, 65 Then plunged into the angry flood, that bold and dauntless band. High flew the spray above their heads, yet onward still they bore, Midst cheer, and shout, and answering yell, and shot, and cannon-roar,— "Now, by the Holy Cross! I swear, since earth and sea began, Was never such a daring deed essay'd by mortal man!" 70 Thick blew the smoke across the stream, and faster flash'd the flame: The water plash'd in hissing jets as ball and bullet came. Yet onward push'd the Cavaliers all ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... here Swear nevermore to slacken Till in the land of life we Cease to be counted, Our names ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... talk that a-way!" He burst into tears and flung his arms around the Sheriff's neck. He protested that he had never, seen him take a drink in his life; he would go and tell the Judge so; if necessary, he would swear to it ...
— The Sheriffs Bluff - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... as he folded me in his arms," will you forgive your bad boy this once more? I have been a jealous, insulting brute, but I swear to you—" ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... picking up a crew, or perhaps a trifle over-loaded or not properly found, and short-handed in consequence. That's the sort of craft I'd look out for you, and if one wouldn't take you, another would. I'd tog you out like an A.B., and swear you knew your duty." ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... favourite child Exclaim'd,—"'Tis, by Heaven! a terrible thing Before a he-party to sit and to sing!" "By my shoul! Master Moore, you there may be right," Said a son of green Erin; "tho' dear to my sight Are all the sweet cratures, call'd women, I swear, Yet I think we can feel just as well as the fair: Tho' you'd bribe us with songs, blood and 'ounds! let me say, I'd not be a woman for one ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... set you as free as you are to-day, my white blossom girl! You cannot understand; but God hears me and I swear it!" ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... girl, in an earnest tone of entreaty; "don't, oh, don't swear so. It is awful to think that God hears you, is near you— at your very elbow—while you thus insult Him ...
— Life in the Red Brigade - London Fire Brigade • R.M. Ballantyne
... been wholly wanting. I could not have stopped the horses in time; the child would have been run over and killed; the big, fat coroner would have come and sat on it and have made us all, who witnessed the scene, swear over the matter; the poor mother would have gone to the lunatic asylum; the father would have committed suicide; the nursery maid would have—obtained another place and been the death of an indefinite ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... the great cabin, and sometimes vote him small parcels of plate and china (for it may be noted that Roberts drank his tea constantly), but then every man, as the humor takes him, will use the plate and china, intrude into his apartment, swear at him, seize a part of his victuals and drink, if they like it, without his offering to find fault or contest it. Yet Roberts, by a better management than usual, became the chief director in everything of moment; ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... said to Betty Murdoch, as he affectionately rubbed one of Finn's ears, "I believe this old gallant has quite fallen in love with Miss Desdemona, and I could swear he's been hunting in her company to-night. He has all the look of it. I suspect it carries him back to old days, past the quarantine, past even Australia—eh, old chap?—and back to his hunting ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... the jail, but do not swear; it is a sin. By removing him from this his great temptation we may save even his blood-stained soul. But the souls of his victims? Oh, sir, when a good man is hurried to his grave our lamentations are natural but unwise; but think what he commits who ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... the Chief warned me. "It would ruin the whole future of space travel, as people are just learning to accept it as a matter of course. You will swear your men to utter secrecy, and pass me your word, in behalf of your officers and yourself, that you will not divulge ...
— Vampires of Space • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... high-priest appears or as he does so. Is or is not the Sabbath broken by the killing of the Paschal lamb? Why is it lawful to take tithe of corn and wine and oil, and not of anise, cummin, and peppers? In swearing by the Temple, should one not first swear by the gold on the Temple? and in swearing by the altar, should one or should one not first swear by the sacrifices on it? These things, since he preaches, he must know. If he ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... corporation of Law clerks and of the school. There was no turpitude which was not sacred on that day. And then there were gay gossips in the crowd—Simone Quatrelivres, Agnes la Gadine, and Rabine Piedebou. Was it not the least that one could do to swear at one's ease and revile the name of God a little, on so fine a day, in such good company as dignitaries of the church and loose women? So they did not abstain; and, in the midst of the uproar, there was a frightful concert of blasphemies and enormities of all ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... the Captain, stepping close and gripping him by the upper arm, "will you swear to me you have ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... under the "solvent tenant test," (which was generally adopted by the Conservative barristers,) the claimant was obliged to swear and to prove that "he could obtain from a good and solvent tenant a clear yearly rent of ten pounds over and above what he paid himself," while the freeholder, qualifying under "the beneficial interest test," (which was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... (for you claim to be my own father), that I did not drive his cows to my house—so may I prosper—nor crossed the threshold: this I say truly. I reverence Helios greatly and the other gods, and you I love and him I dread. You yourself know that I am not guilty: and I will swear a great oath upon it:—No! by these rich-decked porticoes of the gods. And some day I will punish him, strong as he is, for this pitiless inquisition; but now ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... that decides it. Two happened while I was there, and in my presence; and all the parties went away, to outward appearance, satisfied and contented with his determination. He keeps a strict discipline. I never saw one of his people drunk, nor heard one of them swear, all the time I was there. He does not allow them rum; but in lieu gives them English beer. It is surprizing to see how cheerful the men go to work, considering they have not been bred to it. There are no idlers there. Even the ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... that would sometimes go. Just as the donkey chanc'd to feel, you know, Which he would ride, whenever his brigade Was ordered to the streets for a parade; But as the times got hard, he'd loudly swear The oats that donkey ate he could not spare. At length he said: "I'll turn him out, py Gott!" Looked at his wife and to her said, "Vy not? Let him go eat upon the public ways, I want him only for the training days." So the poor donkey had to feed on thistles. Until ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... and illusive pacifications, Alfred attempted to bind the Danes by Christian oaths. Their customary mode of binding themselves, in cases where they wished to impose a solemn religious obligation, was to swear by a certain ornament which they wore upon their arms, which is called in the chronicles of those times a bracelet. What its form and fashion was we can not now precisely know; but it is plain that ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... And if you saw these bills in the next five minutes you'd be able to swear they're the same bills you ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... "Beats thunder, I swear!" said he, "if the old woman haint got spliced again—and she's every month of fifty-six ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Color. Extreme red, yellow, and blue are discordant. (They "shriek" and "swear." Mark Twain calls Roxana's gown "a volcanic eruption of infernal splendors.") Yet there are some who claim that the child craves them, and must have them to produce a thrill. So also does he crave candies, matches, and the carving-knife. He covets the trumpet, fire-gong, and bass-drum ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... the breast of the savage a deep hatred against all white men; a hatred so intense that he frequently, during and subsequent to the mutiny, declared he would eat the first white man he killed; yet this cannibal was made to swear allegiance to our sovereign on the Holy Evangelists, and was then called ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... some character or other by their dress; some affect the tremendous, and wear a great and fiercely cocked hat, an enormous sword, a short waistcoat and a black cravat; these I should be almost tempted to swear the peace against, in my own defense, if I were not convinced that they are but meek asses in lions' skins. Others go in brown frocks, leather breeches, great oaken cudgels in their hands, their hats uncocked, and their hair unpowdered; and ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... to the little one robbed of her all right up to the door of death. She that is named Shiloh, which means rest. Do it, oh, God,—take it from my account if she ain't got none yet herse'f, an' I swear to You with the faith of Abraham that henceforth I will live to light a fire-brand in this valley that will burn out this child slavery, upheld now by ignorance and the greed of the gold lovers. Save little Shiloh, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... go sneaking after her," he had thought. "She's true, I'll swear to it. The man's lying... Very well, then, Davy, boy, don't you take rest till you're ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... cried the Squire, chuckling, "I long to see how you'll astonish Stirn. Why, you'll guess in a moment where we put the top-dressing; and when you come to handle my short-horns, I dare swear you'll know to a pound how much oilcake has gone ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Day unto day, in the revolutions of that glorious orb, which shed a flood of light over the impenetrable forests and wild wastes that surrounded me, uttereth speech. Yet His voice is not heard among the heathen, nor His name known throughout these vast territories by Europeans in general, but to swear by.——Oh! for wisdom, truly Christian faith, integrity and zeal in my labours as a minister, in this heathen ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... to be still more indelicate in her manner, so that Chia Lien could not refrain himself from making a full exhibition of his warm sentiments. When their tete-a-tete had come to a close, they both went on again to vow by the mountains and swear by the seas, and though they found it difficult to part company and hard to tear themselves away, they, in due course, became, after this occasion, mutual sworn friends. But by a certain day the virus in Ta Chieh's system had become exhausted, and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... John Frost, returning from France, admitted in a chance conversation in a coffee-house that he thought society could manage very well without kings; he was imprisoned, set in the pillory and struck off the rolls. One favourite expedient was to produce a spy who would swear that he had heard some suspect Radical declare in a coach or a coffee-house, that he would "as soon have the King's head off as he would tear a bit of paper" (evidence against a group of Manchester prisoners), or that he "would cut off the King's head as easily as he would shave himself" ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... the business over, but I don't see why a decent woman, and her a God-be-praised widow, should lose her living because you can't train your brats in the way they should go. But this is mine! If you don't stand by me and swear to do it here and now, it's not another drink one of you shall get in my place ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... Sam, honest to Gawd it was. He come back, boss; said he'd been fightin' with a cat-o'-mountain! Say, boss, you sure hit him hard. One of his lamps is a pudding! Boss, I'll swear I ain't had nothin' ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... the police are after me sharp. They've had me before the mayor twice, and got two or three to swear they saw me pick up the child in Briar street and run off with him. ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... heard Washington swear," Lafayette once remarked, "was when he called General Charles Lee a 'damned poltroon,' after the arrest of that officer for treasonable conduct." Nor was Washington the only person of self-restraint and good manners whose temper and angry passions were roused by this ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... tried to seal the fountains of truth. Picture a man kneeling before the authorities at Rome and stating: "With a sincere heart and unfeigned faith I abjure, curse, and detest the said errors and heresies. I swear that for the future I will never say nor assert anything verbally or in writing which may give rise to a {463} similar suspicion against me."[3] Thus he was compelled to recant and deny his theory that the earth ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... whose indulgence and liberality they alone had experienced; but the emergency of the occasion, the authority of their praefect, the reputation of Pertinax, and the clamors of the people, obliged them to stifle their secret discontents, to accept the donative promised by the new emperor, to swear allegiance to him, and with joyful acclamations and laurels in their hands to conduct him to the senate house, that the military consent might be ratified by the civil authority. This important ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... Epicurean Temple's library, you whose friends were Pope and St. John—what made you to swear to fatal vows, and bind yourself to a lifelong hypocrisy before the Heaven which you adored with such real wonder, humility, and reverence? For Swift was a reverent, was a pious spirit—for Swift could love ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... place the Queen did not fully accept from anybody, at any time. At that period, it is probable she would have gladly taken off the crown, to place it on his dear head, and doffed the ermine mantle to put it on his manly shoulders, and would have been the first to swear ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... Doctor Heath. "Miss Wardour possesses one of those peculiar constitutions upon which all opiates act with disastrous effect. It is fortunate that a cautious hand,—I was about to say a skilled hand,—administered the drug. I could swear that not the half of an ordinary dose was given her, for a full dose would have prostrated her for days; and the quantity it would require to make you or me sleep soundly for half the night, would kill ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... The mere thought of it makes me tremble. I find myself implicated in the murder of the Lyons' courier. Three women and two men, whom I know not—whose residence I know not—(for you well know that I have not left Paris)—have had the impudence to swear that they recognise me, and that I was the first of the four who presented himself at their houses on horseback. You know, also, that I have not crossed a horse's back since my arrival in Paris. You may understand the importance of such an accusation, which tends at nothing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... he had no stomach to face the reckoning. He had not noticed before how wiry and strong Stanislaus looked. But when he saw that the boy made no movement, only spoke in that quiet voice, he plucked up a little courage. He began to bluster and swear. ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... a fearsome night this is! The trees will be all broken. What a noise in the lum! I daresay there's some auld hag of a witch-wife gaun to come rumble doun't. It's no the first time, I'll swear. Hae ye a silver sixpence? Wad ye like that?" he bawled up the chimney. "Ye'll hae heard," said he, "lang ago, that a wee murdered wean was buried—didna ye hear a voice?—was buried below that corner—the hearth-stane there, where ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... I'm goin' to do. And ain't this Jasper Starbuck's daughter? I thought so," he added when Lou nodded at him. "I've knowed Jasper a long time, but folks don't git round a visitin' now like they uster. Never seed yo' father drunk in my life—swear it's a fact; never did. I'll bet he kin whup a ground-hog as big as he is. And I'll sw'ar, ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... out of their noses." The outrages, thus perpetrated, with all the affrighting influences brought to bear, prevailed over Carrier's children. Some of them were used as witnesses against her. A little girl, not eight years old, was made to swear that she was a witch; that her mother, when she was six years old, made her so, baptizing her, and compelling her "to set her hand to a book," and carried her, "in her spirit," to afflict people; that her mother, after she was in prison, came to her in the ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... ever in the fashion, and to do humbly and dutifully whatso she seeth everybody else doing. In the meantime you must content yourself as best you can by the playing of those two pieces which you give out as the most damnable ever writ, but which your countrymen, I warn you, will swear are the best you have ever done. But this I will say, that if I could speak across the ages to our descendants, I should heartily recommend them to fulfil your wish; for the Scottish minstrel hath well said that he that maketh the songs of a nation is ...
— Dark Lady of the Sonnets • George Bernard Shaw
... to be discharged, when the lady whom he had accused declared she would swear the peace against him, for that he had called her a whore several times. "Oho! you will swear the peace, madam, will you?" cries the justice: "Give her the peace, presently; and pray, Mr. Constable, secure the prisoner, now we have him, while a warrant is made to take him up." All which was immediately ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... dear Sir, that you truly hurt me with your pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. However, to return it would savour of affectation; but as to any more traffic of that debtor or creditor kind, I swear by that HONOUR which crowns the upright statue of ROBERT BURNS'S INTEGRITY—on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the by—past transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you! BURNS'S character for generosity of sentiment ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... but look here, what did you swear by—the holy Virgin of Guadalupe? No? Well, was ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... he would say, "off an island called the Basket of Flowers, and the sailors had caught a lot of parrots and we were teaching them to swear. Up and down the decks, up and down the decks, and the language they used was dreadful. Then we looked up and saw the masts of the Spanish ship outside the harbor. Outside the harbor they were, so we threw ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... judges conferred together for a brief while, and then ordered that a Mass book should be brought, and bade Dalaber lay his hand upon it and swear to answer truthfully ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... is, that now, on the eve of your marriage, you should not be alarmed on his account. I firmly believe you have no cause for any special fear. Ought you not to respect his wishes, and rest satisfied without seeking to know more than he and I tell you? I will swear, Charlotte, if that is any consolation to you, that I am not immediately anxious about ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... eat the meats consecrated to idols, even when a man or woman is dying of hunger? May one enter into agreements with native camel-drivers and carriers who swear by their gods to keep the bargain? May a lie be told in certain conditions?—say, so as to get among heretics in pretending to be one of themselves, and thus be able to spy on them and denounce them? May adultery be practised with a woman who ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... to be married! Gone to swear a peace! False blood to false blood joined! Gone to be friends! Shall Lewis have Blanche, and Blanche these provinces? It is not so; thou hast misspoke, misheard,— Be well advised, tell o'er thy tale again: It can not be;—thou ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... us through de War. We saw Yankee soldiers come through in droves lak Coxsey's Army. We wasn't afraid for ourselves but we was afraid dey would catch old Master or one of de boys when dey would come home on a furlough. We'd hep 'em git away and just swear dat dey hadn't ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various
... spare themselves, it was because every labor increased their earnings in the settling of accounts at the end of each season. This time, it is true, the profit would be almost nothing, and that gave them just cause to curse and swear ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
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